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Introduction: Myths of Finance and the City

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Narrating the Global Financial Crisis

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Globalization, Culture and Society ((PSGCS))

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Abstract

This chapter provides a brief historical and theoretical contextualization of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) and identifies key challenges that this crisis poses in terms of representation. In particular, the chapter argues that, as a system of abstract value exchange, finance poses a general “problematic of representation”. This problematic is complicated by the process of financialization, which the chapter defines by drawing on scholarship in the fields of sociology, geography and political economy. The chapter introduces the concept of urban imaginary and argues that urban imaginaries recur in popular films, literature and journalistic photographs of the GFC. To analyze these urban imaginaries and examine their political implications in GFC discourses, the chapter suggests reading popular crisis narratives through the concept of myth by using the method of cultural analysis.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, Lancaster University, Lancaster, United Kingdom

    Miriam Meissner

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  1. Miriam Meissner
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Meissner, M. (2017). Introduction: Myths of Finance and the City. In: Narrating the Global Financial Crisis. Palgrave Studies in Globalization, Culture and Society. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-45411-5_1

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