Globalization and Money: A Global South Perspective [Hardcover]

Globalization and Money explores how men and women, particularly the poor and the unbanked in the global South, use money in ways that empower themselves and their families. Supriya Singh argues that money as a medium of relationships across cultures is a central component of globalization. She deftly weaves theory and individual stories to show how money is emblematic of interconnected markets, the half of the world that is unbanked, and gender disparities. She shows how mens and womens banking patterns are tied to their management of money in the household. Migrants send money home to show they care for their families and communities left behind. Yet these remittances are far from symbolic; instead they represent more than three times the total amount of official development assistance. This book illustrates how many of the most exciting changes in harnessing peoples savings; widening credit and insurance; and lowering the cost of technologies, payments and money transfers are taking place in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Singh demonstrates how strategies to help the poor and marginalized have gone global in SouthSouth conversations, making us rethink the contours of globalization and money.Supriya Singh is professor of the sociology of communications at RMIT University.

Globalization and new technologies are transforming the world of money. In this pioneering study, Supriya Singh offers a sweeping and compelling account of those changes. A book that will inspire researchers, inform policy makers, and fascinate students and general readers. Viviana A. Zelizer, Princeton University; author of Economic Lives: How Culture Shapes the Economy

Money is changingin its flows, its figurings, its very form. Supriya Singhs marvelous book demonstrates how much of this change today is coming from the global South. From remittance flows that challenge easy understandings of GDP, gender, and family to the global spread of mobile computingbacked by powerfullӝ