The Sinkholes of Global Finance: Racialization and Cosmopolitanism among Financial Elites in Malaysia

An ethnographic examination of the day-to-day networking sociality of financial elites in Malaysia, Singapore, and Hong Kong shows that, in line with ethnographic studies of core country elites, the subjectivities inculcated among hedge fund managers show racial and class cleavages, but in fund managers’ work, bridging capital structures takes primacy, while bridging structures of privilege remains unacknowledged and thus provides an advantage to those who display conspicuously cosmopolitan consumption and networking sociality. Simultaneously, fund managers’ pervasive ascription of objectivity to a perspective associated with white masculinity creates a structural disadvantage for women, racialized others, and those lacking training or networking capacity in core countries.