Abstract
What kind of object is private life insurance? To discuss this question, this article examines how life insurance is pictured, that is, explained and concretized with words and visual images, in the promotion of private life insurance in Finland between 1945 and 2000. In principle, life insurance can only be used for assessing and securing the economic value of life. The empirical material shows, however, that life insurance, as an object, can only exist if economic value and other values constantly overflow into each other, and calculation and affect are made to intertwine. In order to objectify their potential customers' lives as economic potential, as commodities, insurance companies have indeed had to objectify life – yet not only in terms of monetary value, but simultaneously and as importantly, also as something that is irreducible to monetary value. Hence the promotion of life insurance enacts a double stabilization of objects. On the one hand, advertisements and leaflets show how life insurance matters, what it is capable of, and thus stabilize the understanding of insurance itself as a tool. On the other hand, the promotional materials both stabilize and mobilize ‘life’ as an assemblage of heterogeneous practices and modes of valuation that is irreducible to economic potential.
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.