Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Shifting Measures: The Transformation of Money Regimes in Contemporary Romania

本论文研究项目，由人类学研究生，分析了从社会主义到资本主义在当代罗马尼亚的货币制度的转变。通过在布加勒斯特对两个投资者组织进行为期12个月的人种学研究，并在他们参加的法庭审判期间，该项目探讨了两个有争议的共同基金崩溃所产生的争议。研究方法包括观察和分析投资者协会的每周会议，调查，以建立投资者的人口特征，法院和档案记录的分析，并扩大法庭会议的人种志。该项目将解决的问题，如：什么是货币在后社会主义和它如何不同于社会主义的钱？当地人对金钱和价值观的理解是什么？货币和价值观之间不断变化的关系对东欧更广泛的社会政治变革有何启示？分析货币，道德和社会关系的伴随重组，该项目超越了经济理论，通过研究货币在催化社会变革过程中的作用，以及后社会主义罗马尼亚新社会秩序的表达。从这个意义上说，它借鉴并有助于社会科学和公共政策的几个子领域：货币人类学，法律和诉讼的程序方法，金融市场社会学，以及资本主义和后社会主义经济之间的联系。虽然这项研究的结果将是一个民族志的货币在后社会主义罗马尼亚，其更大的贡献将是一个分析框架，可以相关的理解金融市场和经济变化，在其他前社会主义国家。

This dissertation research project, by a graduate student in anthropology, analyzes the change from socialism to capitalism in contemporary Romania as the transformation of a money regime. Through twelve months of ethnographic research in Bucharest at two organizations of investors and during court trials in which they take part, this project explores the contentions generated by the collapse of two controversial mutual funds. Research methods include observation and analysis of weekly meetings of the investor associations, surveys to establish demographic chracteristics of the investors, analysis of court and archival records, and extended ethnography of court sessions. The project will address questions such as: What is money in postsocialism and how does it differ from socialist money? What are the local understandings of money and values? What can the changing relationships between money and values indicate about the broader socio-political transformations in Eastern Europe? Analyzing the concomitant reorganization of money, morality and social relations, this project goes beyond economic theory by examining the role of money in catalyzing the process of social change and the articulation of a new social order in postsocialist Romania. In this sense, it draws on and contributes to several subfields in social science and public policy: the anthropology of money, processual approaches to law and litigation, the sociology of financial markets, and the articulations between capitalist and post-socialist economies. While the result of this research will be an ethnography of money in postsocialist Romania, its larger contribution will be an analytical framework that can be relevant for understanding the financial markets and economic change in other formerly socialist countries.