The markets are emerging today as a major form of social organization. It is impossible to study the slightest « social fact » without encountering the multitude of markets that cross it. Beyond the divide between the promotion of market instruments as a solution to social and environmental problems and the critique of marketization, the approach developed by the CSI analyzes the plurality of forms of the political inscription in market exchange. It emphasizes the dynamics of “concern” leading to the integration of political and moral issues into the functioning of markets and the valuation processes, which extends the world of economy to new entities.
Research carried out at the CSI covers areas marked by the strong link between economics and politics, such as the use of market instruments in environmental policies, the formulation of prices in the health sector, and the use of natural resources for economic development purposes. This research aims to deepen the analysis of the role of market mechanisms. Two examples of projects can be cited. A recent project on the construction sector highlights the ambivalence of labels that are equally being used to oil the wheels of the market machine and to introduce space and resources for political action. Another project, in collaboration with Canadian, Dutch and Brazilian researchers, explores the controversies surrounding drugs for rare diseases by analyzing the price as an epistemic and political object.
Beyond market research, the CSI has a broader interest in the economic valuation processes such as, for example, the “capitalization” processes that transform various entities into investment objects. Assetization is observable today in areas as varied as biomedical innovation, infrastructures, natural resources, scientific production or public policies. In this latter area, Social Impact Bonds are a telling example. Current CSI research points towards the potentials of an “anthropological critique of value”: this is about considering the concept of value as a vernacular notion that ought to be deconstructed, and as a political technology (one that in which the investment perspective fulfills a dominant role) that ought to be scrutinized. Recent research examines the paradoxes of value (and of “true value” particularly) in the domain of the critique of finance (for instance, in the case of conspiracy thinking).
Research projects
Chaire industrie minérale et territoire [Chair Mineral Industry and Territory]
Show abstract »The holders of the Chair Mineral Industry & Territories include researchers from the four founding schools, MINES Paris-PSL, Mines Nancy, IMT Mines Alès, and the École Nationale Supérieure de Géologie, supported by the Fondation Mines-Télécom.
Chair Mineral Industry & Territory brochure
Contact: Brice Laurent, Scientific Coordinator of the Chair
PREMOCLASSE – Prescrire et modéliser les travaux de rénovation énergétique selon les classes de DPE – Économie socio-technique d’un instrument d’action publique [Prescribing and modelling energy renovation work according to ECD classes – Socio-technical economics of a public action instrument]
Show abstract »Contact: Alexandre Mallard
SPIN – Social Pharmaceutical Innovation for Unmet Medical Needs
Résumé / SummaryContact: Vololona Rabeharisoa
QUAD – Quantification, Administrative Capacity and Democracy
Résumé / SummaryContact: Fabian Muniesa
SEPS – Socio-économie des publications scientifiques [Socio-economics of scientific publications]
Résumé / SummaryContact: David Pontille
Thèses
Thèses en cours
Victoria Brun, Les formes de valorisation de la recherche
Abdoulaye Diaw, La construction du marché du vrac contemporain en France
Clément Foutrel, Stratégies et pratiques de financement dans le gouvernement de la nature. Du bailleur au pêcheur, les aires marines protégées en mer Méditerranée
Clément Gasull, Les dispositifs socio-techniques des blockchains : innovation, valorisation et controverses
Allyson Pallisser, Le commerce comme producteur du « sens de la rue » : l’objectivation des externalités positives du commerce en ville
Thèses soutenues
Cornelius Heimstädt, 2022, Imag(in)er la santé des plantes : Smartphones et expériences distribuées en agriculture
Jean Danielou, 2022, En transition. Quand ENGIE se reterritorialise sous l’effet du réchauffement climatique (2016-2020)
Mathilde Pelizzarri, 2022, La faisabilité d’abord : Epreuves et tactiques de faisabilité dans la mise en œuvre des social impact bonds
Loïc Riom, 2021, Faire compter la musique. Comment recomposer le live à travers le numérique (Sofar Sounds, 2017-2020)
Jean-Baptiste Pons, 2020, La genèse des Euromarchés
Alexandre Violle, 2019, Constituer un territoire de gouvernement pour la finance : enquête sur l’expertise de supervision au sein de l’Union bancaire européenne
Post-doc
Kewan Mertens, Opening the black box of nature valuation: the case of UNESCO nature parks in Europe (NaTUVal)
Publications
Fabian Muniesa, 2023, Financial Value, Anthropological Critique, and the Operations of the Law, in Isabel Feichtner, Geoff Gordon (Eds.), Constitutions of Value: Law, Governance, and Political Ecology, Routledge, 169-180.
Brice Laurent, 2022, European Objects. The Troubled Dreams of Harmonization, MIT Press
Fabian Muniesa, 2022, Paranoid Finance. Social Research: An International Quarterly, 289 (3), 731-756.
Mathilde Pellizzari, Fabian Muniesa, 2022, Social impact bonds and the tactics of feasibility: experience from Chile, Colombia and France, International Public Management Journal, 1-19.
Vololona Rabeharisoa, Liliana Doganova, 2021, War on Diseases. Patient Organizations’ Problematization and Exploration of Market Issues, in Susi Geiger (Ed.), Healthcare activism. Markets, Morals, and the Collective Goods, Oxford University Press, 55-85.
Fabian Muniesa, 2021, Finance: cultural or political?, Journal of Cultural Economy.
Fabian Muniesa, Liliana Doganova, 2020, The time that money requires: use of the future and critique of the present in financial valuation, Finance and Society, 6 (2), 95-113.
Brice Laurent, Alexandre Mallard, 2020, Labelling the Economy. Qualities and Values in Contemporary Markets, Palgrave Macmillan.
Kean Birch, Fabian Muniesa (eds.), 2020, Assetization, MIT Press.
Fabian Muniesa, 2019, Is ANT a critique of capital?, in Anders Blok, Ignacio Farías, Celia Roberts (Eds.), The Routledge Companion to Actor-Network Theory, Routledge, 56-63.
Liliana Doganova, Brice Laurent, 2019, Carving out a domain for the market: boundary making in European environmental markets, Economy and Society, 48 (2), 221-242.
Fabian Muniesa, Liliana Doganova, Horacio Ortiz, Álvaro Pina-Stranger, Florence Paterson, et al., 2017, Capitalization: A Cultural Guide, Presses des mines.
Susi Geiger, Debbie Harrison, Hans Kjellberg, Alexandre Mallard, 2014, Concerned markets. Economic Ordering for Multiple Values, 2nd Interdisciplinary Market Studies Workshop, Dublin, Ireland. Edward Elgar, 269.
Liliana Doganov, Martin Giraudeau, Claes-Fredrik Helgesson, Hans Kjellberg, Francis Lee, Alexandre Mallard, Andrea Mennicken, Fabian Muniesa, Ebba Sjögren, Teun Zuiderent-Jerak, 2014, Valuation studies and the critique of valuation, Valuation Studies, 2 (2), 87-96.