Institute for Money, Technology and Financial Inclusion (IMTFI)

04/23/2026

Save-the-Date! May 13th Book Talk On the Semicivilized: Coloniality, Finance, and Embodied Sovereignty in Cairo with Julia Elyachar, Princeton University
Register to receive readings: https://bit.ly/OnTheSemicivilizedBookTalk

https://sites.uci.edu/imtfiblog/2026/04/23/book-talk-5-13-12-130pmpt-on-the-semicivilized-coloniality-finance-and-embodied-sovereignty-in-cairo-with-julia-elyachar-princeton-university/

04/20/2026

Join us next Wednesday: (4/29) 3-4:30pmPT Marketcraft and the Politics of Profit in Nigeria’s Global South Shift with Vivian Lu, Rice University

UCI Department of Anthropology Colloquium Series, The Institute for Money, Technology & Financial Inclusion (IMTFI), The Global South & World Order Project, and UCI African Studies present:…

04/14/2026

Tomorrow (4/15) 10amPT/11amCT: International Seminar on the Anthropology of Money and the Economy, featuring "The Economics of Music at the Popular Fair" with Dr. José Juan Olvera (CIESAS-Noreste). In Spanish.

José Juan Olvera is a research professor at CIESAS-Noreste. A sociologist, he holds a Master’s degree in Science Methodologies from the UANL, a Master’s in Communication from the UR, and a Ph.D. in Communication and Cultural Studies from the ITESM.

This paper offers a general overview of the music economy within the context of the popular fair in contemporary Mexico. It demonstrates that this role has consistently been significant throughout the centuries—and is even more so in our current era, where new economic and administrative models are developing alongside established forms, such as *mayordomías* (stewardships) and the *sistema de cargos* (system of community offices). The analysis examines the role of the fair within municipal life, the role of music within the fair, and, finally, the role that music plays in the professional lives of musicians.

Seminario Internacional de Antropología del Dinero y la Economía con "Economía de la música en la feria popular" con Dr. José Juan Olvera Ciesas-Noreste.
📅 15 abril 2026
⏰ 11 horas
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José Juan Olvera es profesor-investigador del CIESAS-Noreste. Sociólogo y maestro en Metodologías de las ciencias por la UANL, maestro en Comunicación por la UR y doctor en Comunicación y Estudios Culturales por el ITESM. Es miembro del Sistema Nacional de Investigadores, nivel 1. Sus líneas de especialización son sociología de la cultura y socioantropología de la música popular.

Esta comunicación ofrece un panorama general de la economía de la música en la feria popular del México contemporáneo. Se mostrará que este papel ha sido siempre importante a lo largo de los siglos, y que lo es aún más en nuestra época, donde nuevas formas económico-administrativas se desarrollan al lado de formas previas, como las mayordomías o el sistema de cargos. Se analizará tanto el papel de la feria en la vida municipal como el de la música en la feria, así como el que esta última tiene en la vida laboral de los músicos.

03/12/2026

Join us next Wed: (3/18) 3-4:30pmPT for a talk with Italian archaeologist, historian, numismatist, and Assistant Professor of Cultural Studies and Humanities, Prince Mohammad Bin Fahd University (Saudi Arabia), Antonino ‘Nino’ Crisà, to discuss the impact of war on archaeological sites, museums and small communities in Sicily during WWII.

The UC Irvine Department of Anthropology and the Institute for Money, Technology & Financial Inclusion (IMTFI) present: Codename SICILYWAR: Defending the Sicilian Heritage in Danger (1940-45) w…

03/09/2026

What is the purchasing power of a banknote? And, what will it become? What is the "feel" or "sensoria" of inflation or economic precarity? IMTFI Director and UC Irvine School of Social Sciences Dean Bill Maurer explores these questions looking at payments from the Makola Market in Accra, to the Costco egg line in Long Beach, US in L'Homme.

Le pouvoir d’achat d’un billet de banque : du marché de Makola à Accra à un quartier de Long Beach en Californie/The purchasing power of a banknote: from Makola Market in Accra to a neighborhood in…

03/05/2026

You are invited: next Wed (3/11) 6pmPT “Some Questions for a Global Anthropology of Digital Money” with Horacio Ortiz Université Paris Dauphine - PSL and Fudan University (In Spanish). This talk will look at: institutions that contribute to establishing, legitimizing, and guaranteeing the rules for using digital monies and the social hierarchies and power relations among users of digital monies & between digital monies.
Zoom Registration: https://forms.gle/h3j9VYTcKuW8TxaC9

Seminario Internacional de Antropología del Dinero y la Economía invita a la primera sesión del año con "Preguntas para una antropología global del dinero digital", presenta: Horacio Ortiz Irisso Université Paris Dauphine - PSL, London campus
📅 11 marzo 2026
⏰ 19 horas
Facebook 🎥 https://web.facebook.com/share/18LPD86mva/
Registro: https://forms.gle/Y82nXojtwBXSnPC68

02/26/2026

Summary of 2/13 Symposium on , , and the Financialization of Everyday Life in at CIESAS Occidente

Last February 13, the Center for Research and Higher Studies in Social Anthropology (CIESAS West), in Guadalajara, Mexico, was the host of the symposium "Gender, Debt and Financing of Everyday Life: Experiences from Latin America" organized in the framework of the International Seminar on Anthropology of Money and Economy (SIADE) —coordinated by Dr. Magdalena Villarreal and consolidated as a Latin American space of reference in the anthropological study of economic and monetary practices—and the UNAM Institute of Geography. The meeting coordinated by Postdoctoral Uzuri Aboitiz Hidalgo (CIESAS and EHU-UPV) and Dr. Ana Melisa Pardo Montaño (Institute of Geography, UNAM), convened specialists from different disciplines to reflect on the assemblies between financing processes, gender differentiations and everyday life in the context Latin American.

Central premise: Financing has made credit an axis of social reproduction in Latin America, with especially critical effects for women, whose structural conditions of inequality put them in a position of particularly vulnerable to credit markets and borrowing processes. The meeting brought together researchers and researchers from 9 universities from 6 countries to discuss the intersections between the financial system, gender inequalities and everyday experience in the region and reaffirmed the urgency to continue building academic spaces that articulate the critical analysis of the "financial meetings" with a feminist perspective, and opened the door to future collaborations and collective research on these topics.

by Uzuri Aboitiz Hidalgo, CIESAS and EHU-UPV The meeting brought together researchers from nine universities in six countries to discuss the intersections between the financial system, gender inequ…

02/11/2026

New Book: Financial Democracy: Comparative Political Economy of Banking by past IMTFI Fellow Kurt von Mettenheim co-authored with Olivier Butzbach.

By Kurt Mettenheim, FGV-EAESP In 2010, Lauro Gonzalez, Eduardo Diniz (colleagues in São Paulo), and I became part of the first cohort of IMTFI researchers to study “Banking and Microfinance in Braz…

02/05/2026

You are invited: (2/13) 6:00am-3:00pmPT Symposium “Gender, Debt, and Financialization of Everyday Life: Experiences from Latin America” from SIADE (In Spanish)
https://bit.ly/4tjnhin

12/16/2025

More news on the PENNY from IMTFI Director and UC Irvine School of Social Sciences dean Bill Maurer: Penny Round-Up II

The penny stops here: As 200-year-old coin ends its run, retailers face costly shift without clear rulesBill Maurer, anthropology, law and IMTFI, Retail TouchPoints, Nov. 25, 2025Several legal issu…

12/09/2025

Talking stablecoins, crypto, and tribal chiefs post-GENIUS Act and MORE, IMTFI Director and dean of UC Irvine School of Social Sciences Bill Maurer in the News.

Stablecoins and tribal chiefs: Monetary authority after the GENIUS ActBill Maurer, social sciences dean, anthropology and law professor, and director of the Institute for Money, Technology and Fina…

12/01/2025

Recording: (11/19) An Alternative to Traditional Finance or a New Gateway to the Market? An Exploration of Cryptocurrency Use Among Young People in Argentina w/ Mariana Luzzi and María Soledad Sánchez (CONICET, UNSAM).

[Spanish with English subtitles]

CIESAS International Seminar on the Anthropology of Money and Economics (SIADE) and The Institute for Money, Technology & Financial Inclusion (IMTFI)November 19, 2025Wednesday, 11:00am GMT-6, G…