Sociological, criminological and anthropological research on markets, money, consumption and illicit trade.

What we study. Members of this cluster examine economic activities from sociological, criminological and anthropological perspectives. We study how economic behaviour and its meaning is shaped by cultural institutions, technological developments, social networks, and existing or emerging power structures. We view an economy as a system that allocates and circulates resources to sustain organisational life — whether in global finance, criminal syndicates, local theatre companies, online influencers’ networks or street vending of banned goods. Rather than treating markets as self-regulating domains governed solely by supply and demand, we see them as culturally and morally contested arenas. Economic organisations are not purely rational actors driven by profit maximisation, but entities embedded in social, cultural and political networks. Likewise, we regard money not as a neutral medium of exchange but as a socially constructed, contentious and regulated institution.

Recent work. Peng Wang’s Extralegal Governance: The Social Order of Illegal Markets in China was published by Cambridge University Press in 2025, following The Chinese Mafia (Oxford University Press, 2017). Isak Ladegaard’s Open Secrecy: How Technology Empowers the Digital Underworld appeared in 2025; he holds a Seed Fund for Basic Research grant on how the administrative capabilities of digital platforms empower illicit trade. Cheris Chan’s Marketing Death: Culture and the Making of a Life Insurance Market in China (Oxford University Press) won a Best Book on Globalization award; her current project examines the socio-cultural implications of China’s social credit system. Tom McDonald holds GRF funding for research on Hong Kong’s Web3 development and has published on digital money in Economy and Society. Xiaoli Tian’s study of livestream shopping in China was published in 2023.