Little Tools hosts a workshop on valuations and its problems

Fabian Muniesa was invited to lecture on valuations and its problems at the TIK Centre, on September 23rd.

Abstract

The field of valuation studies is growing. Assisted and inspired by the pragmatist John Dewey (e.g. 1939), one of the objectives of this field and the notion ‘valuations’ has been, and still is, to overcome disciplinary boundaries. Whereas economists used to “own” the question of the value of goods, and sociologists the question of human values and moral sensibilities, ‘valuation studies’ approach this differently. First, value or values are approached not as something that is, but as something that is being performed in practices – hence the notion of ‘valuation’. Secondly, valuation envelopes other ways of wording value – for instance, price, praise, appreciate – thus giving us the benefit of studying different value practices together. Moreover, the valuation studies approach has come to imply attention not so much to valuation as something that is either subjective or objective, but rather as something that is realized, or assisted by devices. In this respect, valuations are material-semiotic achievements. But what are valuations -and its problems? The workshop brings together scholars who will engage with this issue in two, possible, directions: What are the problems that valuation studies are aiming at working with? And do valuation studies in and of itself have problems? In other words, what are its weak spots or pressing challenges to tackle?

About the speaker

Fabian Muniesa is a researcher at the Centre de Sociologie de l'Innovation, Ecole des Mines de Paris, and studies the cultures of business life from a pragmatist perspective. He is the author of The Provoked Economy: Economic Reality and the Performative Turn (2014, Routledge) and the co-author of Capitalization: A Cultural Guide (2017, Presses des Mines).

Organizers

The workshop was organized by the Little Tools Project at the TIK Center for Technology, Innovation and Culture, University of Oslo.

Tags: Economy, Sociology, Valuation
Published Nov. 15, 2017 2:23 PM - Last modified Dec. 12, 2017 10:48 AM