Human Geography

Our Human Geography list tackles the big issues, from equality to population growth to sustainability, publishing in cultural and social geography, development geography, political geography, qualitative and quantitative research methods and urban geography.

The list includes internationally renowned names such as Danny Dorling, Loretta Lees and Anne Power. We publish a range of formats including research books that bridge theory and apply it to practice.

Human Geography

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Chapter 4 continues the discussion and shows how institutional changes have been accompanied by media discourses constructing norms of asset accumulation, on the one hand as a mechanism to gain freedom and prosperity (agency discourse) and, on the other hand, as a necessity everyone has to adopt (non-agency discourse). After having seen how asset norms are constructed, this chapter then unpacks how these norms are transformed into everyday practices. Interviewees draw on key elements of the policy and media discourse, albeit differently interpreted. Agency and non-agency discourse are used to express a critical view of finance. The interviewees feel trapped in having to provide financial security for themselves due to rising job and money insecurity while wanting to have freedom when making financial decisions, which originates from their distrust of financial institutions.

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The final chapter synthesizes the different levels of analysis, highlights their relevance to current literature and also makes policy suggestions. Taken together, the findings presented in the book point to a rethink of the theorization of everyday financialization and what constitutes financially rational behaviour. Revealing the mutually constitutive relationship between norms of conduct and counter-conduct, or, in other words, between asset norms and resistance to these norms, explains why differential subjectivities and practices emerge and continue to exist in even advanced financialized countries. The book ends by conceptualizing a lived finance rationality and its implications for policy measures. Rather than being irrational or passive victims of an unequal welfare system, everyday financial practices and discourses are logical responses to the contradictions and constraints immanent in asset-based welfare.

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The chapter will first show how the composition of UK households’ balance sheets has developed through time and then consider the balance sheets of interviewees and their everyday financial practices. Here, the composition is shown in the light of income differences with a specific focus on medium- to high-income households, and a detailed description of households’ asset portfolios and their incorporated risk levels is given. The everyday practices and discourses of interviewees when discussing their asset choices reveal that they have a rather robust understanding of the inherent contradictions in the current pension system and adjust their asset-accumulation strategies to their own needs. As a consequence, they adopt a three-pronged asset-accumulation strategy guided by an elementary form of diversification and hedging.

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This chapter discusses how structural and normative constraints impact asset-accumulation strategies. In the former case, emphasis lies on key assumptions built into an asset-based welfare system. Individuals who experience an interrupted working life (for example due to caring work), rely on several jobs, are self-employed or have lower income possibilities are restrained in fulfilling requirements of the existing pension system. Yet, predominantly women and people belonging to an ethnic minority group are affected by these differential employment paths. In the latter case, the chapter outlines how gender norms and cultural differences in approaching finance impact everyday financial practices. The chapter concludes by building a bridge to previous research, showcasing that rather than being passive when experiencing constraints, interviewees actively seek ways to deal with them, representing logical responses to an unequal welfare system.

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Building upon the previous two chapters, this chapter moves on to show the impact of the adopted norms of asset accumulation on everyday life, revealing conflicts arising from the dichotomous relationship of trying to achieve asset ownership while rejecting its underlying assumptions. It charts self-governing measures which are adopted by individuals within an asset-based welfare system in order to achieve asset ownership. It focuses on three areas within everyday life: saving strategies, work and relationships. Evidence provided here suggests that there exists a mutually constitutive relationship between everyday practices and asset norms. In the end, the chapter returns to political economy approaches to finance by arguing that asset norms exert power over everyday life by shaping everyday practices in the three areas outlined, strengthening the existing power relationships embodied in capital–labour relationships.

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The introduction defines key concepts employed in the book and connects them to recent events such as the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis on the ability of becoming a financially rational individual. It highlights what explanations of financially rational behaviour are lacking and provides the rationale for the book. The introduction ends with outlining the methodology employed, namely an embedded mixed-methods research where interviews as the guiding method are supported by a document analysis of media outlets and descriptive statistics of UK household balance sheets.

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The last empirical chapter brings together the previously presented insights on everyday financial practices and introduces unique variegated financial subjectivities. Bringing in an understanding of resistance being immanent in power technologies, it is shown how these deviations of norms of conduct not only represent ways of dealing with ambiguities inherent in asset norms and their structural and normative constraints but are also necessary for everyday financialization to work. To differing degrees, they foreground the exploitative character of financial institutions, the accompanying uncertainty of investments, and how asset accumulation enables the dismantling of the welfare state and intensifies capital–labour inequalities, which is reflected in rising money and job insecurity. And yet, the resultant counter-conduct helps to smoothen ambiguities inherent in norms of conduct, enabling asset accumulation and reinforcing a welfare system based on individual responsibility.

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