Arts & humanities research can offer constructive and transformative insights at the centre of debates about money

Thinking of the Future of Money in the Humanities is a networking project that not only aims to explore how money is interpreted, imagined and narrated, but also to use the arts and humanities to envision alternative approaches to money that meet present challenges.

Within the broad field of the “future of money”, the network will focus on two core themes, identified from our initial series of exploratory workshops as particularly urgent and pertinent, and also connecting to existing research in theology and religion:

• the future of cash and cashlessness,
• money in the environmental emergency.

On each theme, we will bring together researchers who can offer historical and cross-cultural perspectives with researchers whose focus is more explicitly on charting the future of money.

Here are some notes on themes emerging from our workshop in February 2024.

Background

We are building on the work of the Cultural Life of Money and Finance project. Based at the University of Leeds and launched in November 2020, this project explored a range of approaches to thinking money in the humanities, including collaboration with art practitioners, interdisciplinary teaching, and work with a coin collection. The project produced a podcast series, featuring arts and humanities academics reflecting on their research relating to money and finance, and drawing out the wider implications of that research.

Future plans

Over the two years of the project (2023-25), there will be in-person or hybrid workshops in Edinburgh for academics and practitioners, as well as online meetings focused on the core themes. We will draw on existing expertise in the University of Edinburgh, not only in the financial humanities, but also in collaborative, interdisciplinary and practice-based research.

By the end of the project we hope to produce a major public-facing report, with accompanying podcasts and video, as well as laying a foundation for future large-scale collaborative work in this area.