Want to take on the banks? Infiltrate them…

I worked as a financial derivatives broker in London from 2008 to 2010, at a company clinging on for life in the midst of the financial crisis. That is not a particularly long time to work as a broker, but I was never aspiring to it as a career. I was an activist on a adventure on the ‘dark side’, immersing myself in the culture of high finance in an act of subversive financial anthropology.

Of course, you might ask why I did this. I perceived it as an experimental form of activism, one that I later came to refer to loosely as ‘culture hacking’. It is a form of deviant anthropological activism. I say ‘deviant’ because it is not ‘straight’ activism, with its insistent focus on good versus evil. Rather, it is bent, ambiguous, dirty, corrupted, dark activism, as much directed at yourself as it is at some external party.

Do you want to challenge financiers who back dictators and surveillance companies? Do you want to be able to enter a corporate general meeting and critically engage with CEOs as a shareholder activist? Do you want to build networks of insider contacts who can give you information? Do you want to blend like a chameleon into the fabric of investment bank conferences? Do you want to feel fused into the emotional and human foundations of powerful institutions otherwise cloaked in technocratic, economic jargon? If so, read the rest of this story (5000 words) here: Dark Side Anthropology

By @suitpossum