Introduction

When I met Jessica13 at her rural southern Tasmanain home, she was quite new to single-parenthood. At 38 years old, Jessica is a mother of five dependent children who also studies part-time, Jessica‟s bright and engaging eyes, open and forthcoming manner, and optimistic demeanour belied her honest description of a hard and

sometimes loveless life. Her memories of abuse included more distant, childhood ones, and fresher memories of an oppressive marriage she had recently gathered the courage to end.

Central to Jessica‟s descriptions of growing up in a large migrant family and in the shadow of an unequal marital relationship, is the meaning and place of money. The primary meaning of money for Jessica throughout most of her adult life has related to her experiences of abuse. Her own earnings, for example, were always taken from her control. Money for new clothes was forbidden except in the case of the males of the house; as was money for meat. Family money was primarily used for her husband‟s needs and his trips away from home. In many ways, money embodied Jessica‟s inequality – as a female, as an adult woman, and as a parent.

Consequently, Jessica doesn‟t like money. She has little faith in it, even now that her circumstances have changed. Left with her husband‟s debts and the costs of

sustaining a family of six on fortnightly welfare payments, life is hard. There is never more food than the bare minimum, clothes are from op-shops and the

disconnection notices are frequent. Jessica constantly worries about money, and feels she is a bit of a „loser‟ with it. In general, money usually represents what Jessica cannot have, rather than what she can.

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41 At the same time however, her changed circumstance has also shifted the meaning of money in other ways. Life may be hard financially, but life is hers, and the finances are now hers to control. Money now also represents independence: from financial, emotional and physical abuse. She says she had to „get smart, really quick‟ in learning to arrange the financial aspects of her life. Her independence allows the possibility of thinking about working and one day even being financially „ok‟. Worlds away, but only right next door in Hobart, is Carin: a single 31 year old; a specialist nurse earning almost $60,000 per annum; a home-owner; and a self- confessed „addictive traveller‟. She is a bubbly, talkative, brown-eyed woman who over the course of our discussion becomes increasingly contemplative and reflective in mood. The question of „what makes a good life‟ makes her increasingly unsettled as she realises through her own responses that she isn‟t necessarily living out what her answers are.

Again, money is an integral part of how meaning is constructed in her life. Money is an „enabler‟ for Carin; a means to an end. This is problematic however, as the ends for which she has put money to use – such as her mortgage or ten years of constant overseas travel - leave a bitter taste in her mouth. She feels an inner disillusionment brewing over the lack of depth and direction in her life, and this taints everything including her work, money, and what she does with it: „It just feels a bit directionless really,‟ she admits.

However, apart from her inner struggles and the fact that having a mortgage hanging over her head taints Carin‟s understanding of a „good life‟, the meaning of money in her practical uses is straightforward. Carin chose nursing as a profession because it is well-paying and flexible work that allows her to do whatever she wants. Money is important in this equation: if she could work less for the same income, she would. Money has allowed her to travel, own a house, buy paintings, renovate the house and plan her next trip. She realises money won‟t buy her happiness; nevertheless it is still worth having.

Jessica and Carin‟s stories suggest that how people understand the meanings of money in a „good life‟ are not only highly contextual but shifting along with changing

42 life circumstances and social/cultural location. Jessica evokes descriptions of low- income, welfare-recipient meanings of money related to financial difficulty, going without, restraint, worry and issues of dependence. Carin‟s middle-income context affords her different meanings of money, related to choice, experiences, plans, and also the ability to reflect on the worth and meaning of what money buys her. Before her divorce, Jessica‟s socio-economic status was mostly likely closer to Carin‟s; but the relational dynamic of her marriage mitigated against money having the same meanings for both women – instead, for Jessica, money embodied the abuse of power and the experience of inequality.

For the vast majority of the participants in this study – like Jessica and Carin – money is a basic, everyday category imbued with particular meanings in their understanding of „a good life‟. What makes the analysis of participants‟ meanings sociological is their embeddedness in cultural and socio-economic structures that point beyond the economic functions of money to the social, cultural and moral meanings of money in our society.

The idea that culture and social relations influence money meanings is not a new one. Research given to identifying social and cultural meanings of money is gaining momentum in the sociology of money and related fields such as anthropology and even economic sociology (Zelizer 2007: 1056). However, neither are these ideas old. A systematic social and cultural interpretation of money was born only in the last few decades and set against a traditional sociology of money understood from primarily economist and functionalist perspectives. The remainder of this chapter is given to clarifying the evolution of thought that has taken place in the sociology of money, and how this thesis fits within those shifting parameters.