?Multiple realities of money. Social meanings and uses of money during foreign exchange restrictions in Argentina (2011-2015)?

MARIANA LUZZI; ARIEL WILKIS

Rio de Janeiro

Workshop; Workshop Werner Gren Foundation ?Real Economy: Ethnographic Inquiries into the Reality and the Realization of Economic Life; 2016

Museo-Nacional y Werner Gran Foundation

Based on qualitative fieldwork conducted between 2014 and 2015 in the cities of Buenos Aires and Santa Fe, Argentina, in the second section of this paper we will describe uses of the U.S. dollar on two specific markets (real estate and soybean production). As we will show, in this two cases the creation of new currencies relies on the definition of what is considered ?real? in each universe (for instance, soy producers who take the ?soybean? as the unit of account and store of value or real estate developers who use ?square meters? as a unit of account). This multiplicity of currencies doesn?t create new borders or barriers, but does provide a new and profitable means for transactions. In this paper, we will focus on these transactions to show that the multiple realities of prices, values and monies should be seen not as problems but as solutions.