000			02332nab a2200181 4500
003			OSt
005			20230830164318.0
007			cr aa aaaaa
008			230830b |||||||| |||| 00| 0 eng d
100			_aOuma, Stefan _957319
245			_aThis can’t be an asset class: _bWorld of money management, society , and the contested morality of farmland investments/
260			_bSage, _c2020.
300			_aVol. 52, Issue 1, 2020 ( 66–87 p.)
520			_aDrawing on several years of fieldwork-based research on and in the “farmland investment space”, this paper argues that a combined reading of debates on assets and assetization in financialized capitalism and convention theory offers novel insights into the moral struggles associated with the transformation of farmland into an “alternative asset class”. It demonstrates that central to the assetization of farmland is the globally distributed effort to bestow it with a legitimate financial worth. While many financial actors paint the picture that farmland has an absolute or intrinsic value, and that this value can be “unlocked”, the paper demonstrates that farmland only gains its financial worth through collective yet contested practices of classification, valuation and valorization. This process has internal (related to the financial industry) and external (related to “society”) dimensions. Farmland only becomes a legitimate asset class if it can be meaningfully set in relation to other asset classes, and if the underlying “assets” generate legitimate returns to investors. At the same time, the legitimation of farmland as an “asset class” has been threatened by attacks of social forces such as NGOs, as accusations of immorality (i.e. “land grabbing”) have become major reputational risks for the supertankers of the industry – institutional investors. This notwithstanding, “capital” and its supporters have worked hard to overcome these internal and external barriers. Eventually, the case presented here allows us to problematize and repoliticize the often-invisiblized morality of finance, which is as much about “value” as it is about “values”.
773	0		_08877 _917103 _dLondon Pion Ltd. 2010 _tEnvironment and planning A _x1472-3409
856			_uhttps://doi.org/10.1177/0308518X18790051
942			_2ddc _cEJR
999			_c14382 _d14382