Economic Re-ordering

In the 1990s, global capitalism became the dominant paradigm around the world, with the market and extractivist and managerial logic serving as the unquestioned template for organizing all aspects of life. Since then, however, repeated financial, political, and epidemiological crises, coupled with mounting ecological challenges, have exposed the limitations of this model. Today we are seeing a comprehensive re-ordering of the economy and the many social processes in which it is embedded. Social ties are becoming the primary source of value and an organizational paradigm for new markets, driven by factors such as the energy transition, the pursuit of sustainable resource consumption, digitalization, financialization, and global commodity chains.

As a result, the anthropological perspective on the embeddedness of the economy has gained renewed importance. We aim to explore the deep integration of the economy with seemingly non-economic realms such as governance, religion, health, leisure, education, and private life in today’s world. On the basis of detailed case studies, we can start to unravel these connections, predict their future trajectories, and rethink foundational concepts. Our investigations use an anthropological lens to understand recent global and colonial history, emphasizing economic factors and materiality rather than assuming the primacy of dominant master concepts. We will address contemporary phenomena, focusing on material and digital infrastructures and their impact on social life, especially in “new” IT-based and supposedly fossil-free industries, platform businesses, crowdfunding, and experimental formats. We will analyse the implications of these innovations on logistics and how they shape the experiences of consumers and producers in their physical and non-virtual environments. Key aspects include the mobility of people and goods, the organization of this mobility through brokers and agencies, and urban planning and development as vital sites of value creation. Moreover, we will explore how these dynamics influence the allocation of costs and benefits to private and public actors at both local and global scales, often by appropriating formerly shared resources.