Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the ways in which actors interpret and respond to economic crises. Based on ethnographic and documentary evidence relating to the 2001 financial crisis in Argentina, it draws on the pioneering work of Sutti Ortiz to reflect on current debates about crisis in the global economy.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores the ways in which actors interpret and respond to economic crises. Based on ethnographic and documentary evidence relating to the 2001 financial crisis in Argentina, it draws on the pioneering work of Sutti Ortiz to reflect on current debates about crisis in the global economy.

Ortiz points out that 'economic men' are rarely in a position of holding sufficient and complete information, such that they might be able to make accurate predictions about the outcome of their actions. Furthermore, she states that: 'Individual decision makers straddle two supposedly separate spheres of action: the social world and the market world', both of which are integral to the explanation of behavior.

Her work addresses questions of choice and decision-making while avoiding the pitfalls of rational choice theory. She proposes a focus on the 'substantive study of decisions', whereby actors' behavior is understood to be influenced by social and political considerations as well as expectations of possible material outcomes to their actions - actions that microeconomics might judge irrational are found to be reasonable.

In the run-up to the 2001 Argentine crisis, information was fragmented and partial; social, economic and political circumstances were contradictory and the future opaque and unpredictable. The ethnography enables us to explore how different actors responded to the conditions pertaining prior to, during and following the crisis. In particular, the significance of a wide range of social and cultural factors inform actors' ideas about and responses to the crisis and the future.