New perspectives on financial phenomena in contemporary sociological studies

Sociology is looking for new theoretical and analytical tools to study the financialization of the world economy and its social consequences. The article focuses on two much debated aspects: a) the traders activity based on expert knowledge and high technology skills; b) the personal finance, regarding how people manage money, credits and debts, interacting with financial intermediates. The aim is to disentangle the practices and the institutionalised processes regulating money exchanges: in this way it is possible to conceptualise the finance world as social system characterized by power differentials as effects of the financial capital circulation. Adapted from the source document.