Abstract
For most American households today, a college education requires financial planning. Planning can seem like a reckoning with “real” economic constraints of household budgetary truths; however, financial planning begins with imaginative acts. To plan, families must craft “projective fictions,” forecasts of trends in the broader economy and family life with which they can guide parenting actions in the present. Drawing on inspiration from ethnographic interviews with more than 160 middle-class college students and their families, this essay examines government policy and financial industry agendas that have linked planning practices with familial virtue. A contrast between two “regimes of foresight” and their moralities—the mid-century US policies’ regime of “near-term prudence” and the contemporary regime of “distant modeling”—exposes the work “real economy” accomplishes: the policies and instruments of planning produce and distribute virtue as much as financial outcomes.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 239-251 |
| Number of pages | 13 |
| Journal | HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory |
| Volume | 8 |
| Issue number | 1-2 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Mar 1 2018 |
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Keywords
- College
- Finance
- Middle class
- Moral economy
- Planning
- Policy
- United States
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Anthropology
Cite this
How will we pay? Projective fictions and regimes of foresight in US college finance. / Zaloom, Caitlin.
In: HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, Vol. 8, No. 1-2, 01.03.2018, p. 239-251.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - How will we pay?
T2 - Projective fictions and regimes of foresight in US college finance
AU - Zaloom, Caitlin
PY - 2018/3/1
Y1 - 2018/3/1
N2 - For most American households today, a college education requires financial planning. Planning can seem like a reckoning with “real” economic constraints of household budgetary truths; however, financial planning begins with imaginative acts. To plan, families must craft “projective fictions,” forecasts of trends in the broader economy and family life with which they can guide parenting actions in the present. Drawing on inspiration from ethnographic interviews with more than 160 middle-class college students and their families, this essay examines government policy and financial industry agendas that have linked planning practices with familial virtue. A contrast between two “regimes of foresight” and their moralities—the mid-century US policies’ regime of “near-term prudence” and the contemporary regime of “distant modeling”—exposes the work “real economy” accomplishes: the policies and instruments of planning produce and distribute virtue as much as financial outcomes.
AB - For most American households today, a college education requires financial planning. Planning can seem like a reckoning with “real” economic constraints of household budgetary truths; however, financial planning begins with imaginative acts. To plan, families must craft “projective fictions,” forecasts of trends in the broader economy and family life with which they can guide parenting actions in the present. Drawing on inspiration from ethnographic interviews with more than 160 middle-class college students and their families, this essay examines government policy and financial industry agendas that have linked planning practices with familial virtue. A contrast between two “regimes of foresight” and their moralities—the mid-century US policies’ regime of “near-term prudence” and the contemporary regime of “distant modeling”—exposes the work “real economy” accomplishes: the policies and instruments of planning produce and distribute virtue as much as financial outcomes.
KW - College
KW - Finance
KW - Middle class
KW - Moral economy
KW - Planning
KW - Policy
KW - United States
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85048981847&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85048981847&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1086/698220
DO - 10.1086/698220
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85048981847
VL - 8
SP - 239
EP - 251
JO - HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory
JF - HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory
SN - 2575-1433
IS - 1-2
ER -