Digital Payments in China: Some Questions for a Pragmatist Anthropology of Money

Abstract

This article explores some features of digital payments in China to raise analytical questions for a pragmatist anthropology of money. It shows that digital payments in China are concentrated in two companies, that are part of a small oligopoly of companies that organize digital connections among around 850 million people in the territory. This raises questions concerning the role of digital payments for social interdependence and the constitution of social hierarchies. The second section analyzes the institutional setting and the legitimizing narratives with which this happens. It shows a complex interdependence between the state and non-state-owned big technological companies, which produce legitimizing narratives that can be shared, divergent or even contradictory. This raises questions concerning the role of digital payments in the project of constituting a national society. In the conclusion, the paper recalls that, although these developments in the Chinese territory cannot be replicated elsewhere, they pose important questions for the analysis of digital money's present and potential futures worldwide.