Paper Short Abstract:

Avoiding a binary either-or decision between historical materialism and new materialism, our infrastructures of value approach highlights the relational materiality of seemingly immaterial value. Instead of polarised commitments, this offers new perspectives on capitalism and supposed alternatives.

Paper Abstract:

Our infrastructures of value approach offers economic anthropology insights in the relational materiality of seemingly immaterial value. Rather than forcing a binary either-or decision between the critique of political economy and the ontology of more-than-human assemblages, we think it is most fruitful – both academically and politically – to develop infrastructure as a lens that enables new perspectives on capitalism and its supposed alternatives. We discuss this productivity of infrastructure studies through two ethnographic cases: Analytical attention to the materiality of information infrastructure in a food network in China allows insights beyond the theoretical ventriloquism of activist critics of capitalist agriculture and the theoretical puppetry of organisers of alternative economies who are well-versed in social theory; and a focus on the modularity and interplay of technological and agronomic infrastructure in Serbia grasps the surprising compatibility of socialist and capitalist projects with their seemingly incommensurable values. In both cases, looking at infrastructures of value directs our attention beyond the usual suspects that populate critiques of capitalism – such as capitalists and workers – to the undergirding work of non-human beings (roads, labels, plants and social science concepts) and experts (not only engineers, but also agronomists and social scientists). Infrastructuring value thus means uncovering often overlooked practices that materially shape value by generating relevant, larger wholes without being in full control. Untangling this meshwork of infrastructured value may not offer clear visions for post-capitalist futures. But in a present that is already more-than-capitalist it charts new terrain for struggles and alliances.