Christianity, finance, and new market experts

Anna-Riikka Kauppinen

Chapter 7 in Elgar Encyclopedia of Economic Anthropology, 2025, pp 82-86 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: This entry explores Christian institutions as agents of financialized capitalism. Building on the case of a Ghanaian bank that employed a Christian pastor as its board chairman, I show how Christian leaders are transforming into market experts in a context where financial liberalization meets the institutional expansion of Charismatic Pentecostal Christianity. To understand the rise of religious-financial elites and their business networks calls for a convergence of economic anthropology and the anthropology of religion. By identifying the range of actors and institutions engaged in financial markets beyond what explicitly looks like a ‘financial intermediation’, economic anthropologists can better grasp the novel institutional assemblages of financialized capitalism; for example, how faith-based networks channel financial capital and the new practices of legitimizing wealth accumulation that result from their enactment.

Keywords: Religion; Capitalism; Finance; Elites; Christianity; Ghana (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781035312566
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