ABSTRACT

Since their very foundation, sociology and anthropology have taken an interest in institutional forms such as money and credit. The sociological domestication of the financial product consists in un-fetishising the commodity in order to 're-socialise' and 're-politicise' it. This chapter focuses on products known as derivatives, a rich and dynamic family of financial products that have single-handedly fascinated, due to the sheer volume of transactions they give rise to, and equally because of their complexity or 'toxicity', as they were almost systematically involved to some extent in the numerous local and global crises linked to financial capitalism. Ethnographic domestication, based on oral histories and/or systematic chronic monographs of particular markets, has also made it possible to highlight that the success of these markets has been supported by the full commitment of some influential, individual or collective, entrepreneurs.