Banking on It: A Material Culture Analysis of Contemporary Private Banking Practices

Abstract: Private retail banking is a central aspect of contemporary life in Sweden. By engaging in banking actions and activities, individuals are able to access money, make payments and commercial transactions, and aim to organize and control private finances. Through the introduction of banking onto digital platforms, handheld devices and plastic cards, banking has become more flexible, mobile and individual than ever. As a result, private banking becomes increasingly delocalized relative to bank offices as it places much of the activity in the hands of the customer. Banking becomes enveloped in everyday life and ingrained to the point of being taken for granted. Yet, cultural research into the field is rare and banking as everyday activity has been largely overlooked or left to micro-economic research. This thesis investigates private banking as everyday practice, coming together as a meshwork of embodied skills, places and things. It asks what contemporary Swedish banking practices are and how they may be understood from a cultural analytical vantage point. As its primary perspective, the thesis identifies and acknowledges the salience of material things to private banking practices. Thus, it engages an analysis of the material culture of the things which make and frame these: the authentication device, the credit/debit card and new media technology, specifically the laptop and smartphone. The theoretical foundation rests on the objectification and entanglement of these things and, consequently, what this may be understood as entailing for those who engages in banking practices. To support this investigation, the analysis draws on ethnographic material gathered during two applied cultural analytical research projects for a niche bank in Lund, Sweden. By composing a cultural analysis of banking practices through the material culture of the things that make and frame it, the thesis ultimately reflects on the benefits of this research for three interlinking yet distinct fields: cultural science, business and activism. In the end, it is suggested that ethnographic research of the material culture of banking practices offers openings for the creation of new knowledge regarding customer behavior, potential action and further research into the relation of individuals and their financial resources.