Viviana Zelizer’s work as inspiration for a public sociology of money

Viviana Zelizer’s work was welcomed in Latin America, where new generations of economic sociologists were reworking the study agenda of the discipline. The recent history of our subdiscipline in the region cannot be told without taking into account Zelizer’s contributions to the analysis of markets, finance, consumption, money, intimacy, and economic relations, among many others. This article provides an overview of my research over the past fifteen years and explores the impact Zelizer’s work has had on my work style as a sociologist, the questions I have formulated, the objects of research I chose, the concepts I have developed, and ideas that have resonated across the field. I will show the connections between the economic and social cycles in Argentina, different periods in the history of sociology, and the Zelizer’s ideas of money. Different moments of my career as a money sociologist, part of the ‘new’ generation of economist sociology in Latin America whose work draws on Zelizer’s ideas, also figure into the analysis. I show how Zelizer’s work connects with the times, circulates internationally, builds academic communities, enables new interpretations, forges previously unexplored research paths, and contributes to a public sociology of money.