5b. Financialisation

Question 1

Financialisation and distancing.
Food is being abstracted into complex commodity derivatives (an exacerbation of commodity fetishism) which obscures the role of financial actors and makes it more difficult to link their actions to consequences on the ground.
Financing is largely agreed to drive food volatility by exposing agricultural prices to broader trends in financial markets. When prices go up, investors profit but the food security of the world’s poorest suffer.
Investors act in a herd-like fashion due to a lack of perfect information and beyond fundamentals.
Land/agriculture/food as a spatio-temporal fix for captialist crises

Answer 1

Clapp (2014)

Question 2

SSI and the financialisation of development in Sub Saharan Africa.

Answer 2

Watts & Scales (2014)

Question 3

Commodities futures markets and global food prices - tracking the relationship between liquidity (where assets are bought without long-term commitments to holding them), potential profitability and market fluctuations.

Answer 3

Ghosh et al (2012)

Question 4

Mainstream vs heterodox approaches to capitalism and crises.

Answer 4

Kuehnlenz et al (2023)

Question 5

A feminist critique of over-determined capitalocentrism.

Answer 5

Gibson-Graham (2006)