Speculating on Everyday Life: The Cultural Economy of the Quotidian

Abstract

The economic crisis has generally been understood in terms of financial excess, speculation and fraud. This article suggests that there is a need to decenter this focus on financialization and instead reflect on the crisis as a cultural as much as an economic event. It addresses the normalisation of practices of calculation and investment within everyday life, especially in the figure of the ‘citizen-speculator’ who is now required to view housing as a site of accumulation and object of speculation, not only for debt-fuelled consumption in the present but also as a source of asset-based welfare in the future.