Readers attentive to the PERFORMABUSINESS focus already know that capitalization is at the center of the agenda. “Elements for a Social Inquiry into Capitalization” is the title of book manuscript, currently submitted for publication, co-authored by an expanded project collective (Fabian Muniesa, Liliana Doganova, Horacio Ortiz, Alvaro Pina-Stranger, Florence Paterson, Alaric Bourgoin, Véra Ehrenstein, Pierre-André Juven, David Pontille, Basak Sarac-Lesavre and Guillaume Yon). The book critically examines the meaning of capitalization. It proposes an inquiry into the traits, necessities and upshots of this particular process of valuation in which things become assets and their value is assessed from the viewpoint of an investor. Grounded on a pragmatist attention to practical process, material culture and situated interpretation, the book takes the form of an ethnographic exploration of a number of relevant scenes and sites: situations in which the meaning of capitalization is progressively captured. Through the description of acts of capitalization and the analysis of the narratives they require and the practices they institute, the book articulates a research sensibility that renders capitalization visible and approachable as an anthropological problem. The inquiry signals the centrality of a problematic scenario in which the objects of valuation are capitalized – they become capital – and transformed accordingly.

More on the fate of this key project deliverable soon!