An Anthropologist Goes Offshore, or, Creating an Actor-Network Among Finance Elites

Samuel Weeks

A chapter in Health, Money, Commerce, and Wealth, 2024, vol. 43, pp 63-80 from Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Abstract: This article discusses the methodological implications of a recent study on Luxembourg's offshore financial center. Insight from actor-network theory was essential in undertaking its ethnographic research with elites from the country's state and financial institutions. My intention in documenting this approach is to provide a template for ethnographers studying other localized contexts of global politico-economic significance, in which elite actors usually seek to curtail the enquiries of investigators. With this actor-network from Luxembourg as an example, I demonstrate how elite and difficult-to-access milieus can be entered via “networking” coupled with outreach via interviews and email correspondence. As I show, by initiating various modalities of entry into the context in question, ethnographers can establish themselves within an actor-network for the purposes of conducting interviews and participant observation with elite interlocutors.

Keywords: Actor-network theory; economic anthropology; offshore finance; elites; interviews; Luxembourg (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eme:reanzz:s0190-128120240000043005

DOI: 10.1108/S0190-128120240000043005

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