Practices and meanings of non-professional stock-trading in Taiwan : a case of relational work

Abstract

Non-professional investors, especially in the non-Anglo Saxon context, represent an important and under-researched topic for sociological studies of finance. The paper presents a qualitative study of non-professional investors in Taiwan, where levels of participation in the stock market are very high. It shows that investors are embedded in complex networks of social relations, cultural norms and economic projects. We use Zelizer’s notions of ‘relational work’ and ‘earmarking’ to explore how economic relations construct and reinforce social relations: investing is productive of, as well as derived from, social structures. Stock market participation secures access to social groupings and reproduces power relations in families and social networks. Our study contributes to the growing recognition that mundane social relations must be written into the sociology of economic activity.