Graduate student Ursula Dalinghaus, supervised by Dr. Karen Ho, will undertake research on efforts to build economic literacy for the new euro currency in Germany. Since 1989, Germans have debated the structures, effects, and meanings of two highly charged projects of economic integration: German unification in 1990, which introduced the Deutsch Mark currency and tied the vastly different socialist East and capitalist West German economies together, and the introduction of the euro in January 2002. Preliminary research has suggested that many Germans link these two events and thereby experience the euro as a monetary loss despite favorable exchange rates and positive economic indicators. In this project, Dalinghaus will investigate this finding systematically.
The researcher will test the idea that public contestations of economic integration reframe purely monetary definitions of the euro. She will investigate how and to what effect experts work to bridge the gap between formal and public explanations of a currency by studying euro-related public relations work of the Deutsche Bundesbank (German Central Bank) in Frankfurt and Leipzig, and euro-focused programs of the European Union Center in Leipzig.
She will employ a range of social science research methods, including structured and open-ended interviews with Bundesbank staff, participant observation of economic outreach activities in Frankfurt and Leipzig, and textual analysis of media and official publications on the euro and economic integration. The data from institutions, officials, and experts will be complemented by collecting personal financial histories of East and West Germans. This aspect of the research will document how both German and European currency unions have informed daily practices surrounding money, such as consumption, relations of credit and debt, budgeting strategies, and financial investments.
This research will yield practical applications for improving dialogue between financial institutions and the public, while raising critical consciousness about the multiple contexts in which both experts and the public situate their experiences of money and economic stability. It also will contribute to the education of a social scientist.
