Paper short abstract:

Based on participant observation carried out with consultants in cross-border mergers and acquisitions in Shanghai, the presentation explores how they co-constituted the distinction between national and foreign with the rules and legitimacy of states and global finance to produce global hierarchies.

Paper long abstract:

This presentation analyzes how the social hierarchies produced by the financial industry are co-constituted with power relations outside of it. Based on participant observation carried out with consultants in cross-border mergers and acquisitions in Shanghai, the presentation explores how for the financial professionals observed, crossing a national border meant partly establishing distinctions between what is and is not finance. Financial professionals observed in this study produced differences between “China” and the “West”, which they defined in terms of economies, states, nations and cultures, exploring different roles for the financial industry. In a process close to what Jane Guyer described as conversion, they used standardized methods of valuation to bring together these incommensurable entities into a single price for a single transaction. Studying transactions with companies centered on health and environmental protection, the article shows how, through these conversions, professionals enclosed these activities within the limited possibilities provided by the imaginaries of states, cultures and nations and the global role of the financial industry. Financial professionals thus co-constituted the distinction between national and foreign with the rules and legitimacy of states and global finance to produce global hierarchies.