Number Interception

Daniel Seabra Lopes

Journal of Cultural Economy, 2015, vol. 8, issue 2, 202-217

Abstract: This article presents an ethnographic study of financial risk management in the retail banking sector with the aim of highlighting some interactional aspects of epistemic practices. The focus is centred on concrete and particular applications of standardized concepts such as market-value and value-at-risk. The close analyst engagement with numerical information is portrayed through a sequence of four practice modulations, which configure a movement from the unproblematic to the problematic, starting with value verification and value explanation , moving on to norm discussion and ending with inference/generalization procedures for the purposes of value re-estimation. The ethnographic evidence presented also reveals primary engagement with numerical inscriptions via boundary objects (specifically software programs and database management languages) and subsidiary human interaction; and a steady division of labour between humans and machines, with computers acting as mass calculators and analysts as skilled number surveyors. The implications of these findings are further assessed in terms of a possible cultural understanding of evaluation practices.

Date: 2015
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DOI: 10.1080/17530350.2013.858063

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