The Problematizing and Counter-Conducting Subjects of Financial Education

Abstract

Financial institutions and products play an increasingly important role for citizens’ personal financial welfare. Recently, governments have voiced concerns about citizens’ lack of financial skills. In Sweden, and elsewhere, financial education projects have been launched as a remedy. Since the year 2010, the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority (FSA) has cooperated with interest organizations and private financial companies in educating citizens on matters of finance. This chapter draws on ethnographic materials from financial education in Sweden and shows how attending citizens (re)act to such teachings as attempts to transform them into good financial subjects. Drawing on Foucault’s insight, the analysis shows how power does not only operate by subjection but also through the subjects’ own power to form and constitute themselves. It is shown how the attendees give prominence to other competing values in everyday life than being financially “savvy” subjects, that is, how they problematize the ideals conveyed to them and display counter conduct.