The concept of 'financialization': Criticisms and insights

Financialization – the growing presence and influence of financial entities in the global economy – has emerged as a key concept in explaining contemporary socio-economic change. Importantly, it is becoming increasingly utilized in agri-food research, with finance capital being implicated in large-scale land acquisitions (‘land grabs’), in the purchasing and asset stripping of companies in the food sector, and in speculative activities relating to agricultural commodities and farmlands. Despite being harnessed in understanding the modern-day dynamics of global capitalism, financialization has drawn considerable criticism. It has been viewed as nebulous and ‘chameleon-like’ – lacking conceptual clarity. It is said to tell us nothing new. It is blamed for being a-spatial and a-historical. It is seen to be totalising, with the ‘financialization of everything’ being a logical conclusion from its application. And, it apparently does nothing to help penetrate the ‘black box’ of mathematics that underpins all modern financial transactions. In this chapter, the key criticisms of the concept of financialization are examined, and its theoretical connection with globalization and neoliberalism explored. We argue that the concept of financialization is an important macro-level concept in its own right, connected in a two-way relationship with the other macro-level concepts of globalization and neoliberalism. Examples from agri-food studies are provided to evaluate financialization’s efficacy in explaining changes at both the global and local levels. It is claimed that, through more applied research, the concept of financialization has the potential to provide new insights into agri-food studies