Introduction: The Current Economy
1. Regulating
2. Representing
3. Optimizing
4. Protesting
Epilogue: Techno-Economics
Canay Özden-Schilling is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the National University of Singapore.
"With incredible ethnographic skill and formidable theoretical
insight,The Current Economy shows how things that we presume to be
singular, such as electric grids, can be multiplied, recast as
sources of profits, resisted as intrusions into middle class lives,
and much more. This is essential reading for all interested in
discovering how the dominant economic imagination is much more than
market orthodoxy."
—Andrea Ballestero, Rice University
"Electricity is ordinary. Electricity is extraordinary. In this
extraordinary ethnography, Canay Özden-Schilling re-introduces us
to this mundane form of energy through its recent marketization
process. At the cutting edge of anthropological approaches to
capitalism and infrastructure, this is a masterful account of a
commodity that kicks back."
—Hannah Appel, University of California, Los Angeles
"Özden-Schilling provides a fresh take on the ways in which
technological and economic expertise shape and change contemporary
capitalist markets while purposefully refraining from 'taking
neo-liberalism as an allencompassing context' (p. 112)."—Darren
Sierhuis, Urbanities
"[The Current Economy] is a great book with much to engage with in
it. For anthropologists interested in expertise, energy, and the
making of markets, it makes a timely contribution to these topics
and is essential reading. Accessibly written, it will appeal to
undergraduates, postgraduates, and seasoned researchers
alike."—Sean Field, Journal of the Royal Anthropological
Institute
"Özden-Schilling's ethnography of US electricity markets is a
compelling example of issue-oriented anthropology, as she navigates
different sites to convey the state of market-making in wholesale
electricity. ... Coming out in the wake of 2021 Texas electricity
infrastructure failure, which demonstrated the importance of
designing resilient and embedded electricity markets,The Current
Economy: Electricity Markets and Techno-Economicsis a good resource
for anyone who is interested market-building practices in general
and electricity markets in particular."—Hikment Nazli Azergun,
Journal for the Anthropology of North America
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