Digital Payments in China: Some Questions for a Pragmatist Anthropology of Money

Ortiz Horacio ()
Additional contact information
Ortiz Horacio: Research Institute of Anthropology, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China

Accounting, Economics, and Law: A Convivium, 2024, vol. 14, issue 2, 251-270

Abstract: This article explores some features of digital payments in China to raise analytical questions for a pragmatist anthropology of money. It shows that digital payments in China are concentrated in two companies, that are part of a small oligopoly of companies that organize digital connections among around 850 million people in the territory. This raises questions concerning the role of digital payments for social interdependence and the constitution of social hierarchies. The second section analyzes the institutional setting and the legitimizing narratives with which this happens. It shows a complex interdependence between the state and non-state-owned big technological companies, which produce legitimizing narratives that can be shared, divergent or even contradictory. This raises questions concerning the role of digital payments in the project of constituting a national society. In the conclusion, the paper recalls that, although these developments in the Chinese territory cannot be replicated elsewhere, they pose important questions for the analysis of digital money’s present and potential futures worldwide.

Keywords: payments; money; digital; China; institutions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E42 G29 P00 Z1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1515/ael-2021-0102 (text/html)
For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bpj:aelcon:v:14:y:2024:i:2:p:251-270:n:4

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.degruyter.com/journal/key/ael/html

DOI: 10.1515/ael-2021-0102

Access Statistics for this article

Accounting, Economics, and Law: A Convivium is currently edited by Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Yuri Biondi and Shyam Sunder

More articles in Accounting, Economics, and Law: A Convivium from De Gruyter
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Peter Golla ().