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Markets awakened great interest in the later years of the 20th century, perhaps in response to the rise of financial markets and the increased 'marketization' of public services, social security and other welfare provisions that were previously the domain of nation-state policies and regulations. A discussion on the types of markets, their cultural dimensions and how they can be understood analytically is presented.

Abstract: This paper rests on the assumption of an increased presence and relevance of object worlds in the social world. It holds that this influx of object worlds coincides with [...]

In postsocial knowledge cultures, the rise of modern science has brought a type of object-relationship that is different from the major kinds of object-relations that have existed in sociology, those linked to commodities and to instruments. The new type relates to expert cultures, to objects of knowledge. It could be extended to human relationships to nature or to physical activities or something else. With expert cultures the sociality with objects tends to be over a long period, consuming and in some way reciprocal. Objects become sources of the self and of social integration.

The article analyzes the transformation of financial markets from a network-based configuration to that based on a scopic mode of coordination facilitated the emergence of a global market that moves across time zones.

The construction of wants and the embodying of the market in the work routines of workers on the Swiss foreign exchange market are focused. The role of the computer screen within the establishment of postsocial relations around a sense of embodied lack is discussed.

This article examines the global lifeform of institutional currency transactions. The authors, maintaining this global lifeform inhabits technology during waking hours and is distributed across three major time zones, argue that istributing and centering of these financial markets are not at odds with each other.