Villarreal, Magdalena <br/><br/>
Carola and Saraswathi: Juggling Wealth in India and Mexico 

 -  2015.<br/>							 
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<br/><br/> Drawing on ethnographic work in India and Mexico, this article considers the nature of wealth in the women’s everyday financial operations. We argue that wealth is not simply the actual income or quantifiable resources possessed by an individual or family but also relates to the manner in which certain material and symbolic resources are deployed and endowed with meaning in given cultural contexts. Beyond what is typically defined as “capital”, what matters in the acquisition of wealth is the process by which people are able to employ their capital to realize a profit ( “capitalization”). Doing so, however, requires that one constantly “juggle” the mechanisms for acquiring wealth. These consist of an uninterrupted series of risky operations in which various forms of capital are combined, articulated and sometimes substituted for one another. It is only by virtue of this interdependency and constant circulation that these forms of capital acquire value.