The price of speculation

Fintech risk regimes in Hong Kong

Bibliographic Data

ID18947372
AuthorsR Hoyng (0000-0002-8136-1566, School of Journalism and Communication, New Asia College, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong SAR, People’s Republic of China, corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume38
Issue2
Pages219-244
Publication date2024-03-03
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueCultural Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0950-2386 • E-ISSN: 1466-4348
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/09502386.2022.2090017
OpenAlexW4283165732
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited43

In what ways do fintech (financial technology) innovations mediate and articulate heterogenous facets of uncertainty in the context of finance capitalism? Arguing that uncertainty is a resource both produced and exploited, this article analyses how fintech trading applications configure market uncertainty as figures and scenarios of risk and opportunity. Moreover, foregrounding the experiences of novice retail traders, I analyse the weighing of financial risk against extra-financial forms of uncertainty, namely historical contingency, lived precarity, and infrastructural opacity. To map articulations between the various facets of uncertainty involved (i.e. risk, contingency, precarity, and opacity), I propose the concept of risk regimes: sociotechnical constellations or assemblages that interweave technologies of financial calculation and prediction; discourses of probability, possibility, risk, reward, et cetera; technologies of the self; and infrastructures of datafication key to fintech. This study is set in Hong Kong, a context that testifies to the instability of such assemblages. Whereas finance capitalism exploits uncertainty in multiple ways, contingency can also render the future of finance capitalism itself uncertain. Conceptually, I draw on recent media theories, theories of uncertainty and prediction as well as theories of value. Methodologically, I combine app analysis, in-depth user interviews, and digital-methods experimentation

Business · Capitalism · Contingency · Economics · Epistemology · Financial economics · Financial market · Financialization · Foregrounding · Management · Political science · Sociology · Sociotechnical system · Speculation · Blockchain Technology Applications and Security · FinTech, Crowdfunding, Digital Finance · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism · Finance

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