Open seminar at Score

Date: Thursday 28 May 2026
Time: 10:00 - 11:30
Location: Score, Frescativägen 14 A, Stockholm University

Where do land markets come from? Values and valuation work in Germany, England & Denmark

Land markets, it is commonly assumed, deviate strongly from the neoclassical market model of perfect competition because of the natural scarcity, asset-like character and fictious features of what is traded. But how can something seemingly so resistant to categorisation as a market object be valued and exchanged?

To answer this question, this this talk reveals how land is rendered as a legitimate market object by enacting moral imaginaries of what ‘the land market’ is and what it ought to be as an object of knowledge. Drawing on archival and ethnographic research in the field of land valuation in England, Germany, and Denmark, it traces how land is rendered and mobilised as a legitimate market good through valuation work. Rather than reflecting one ideal of the ‘perfect market’, the comparative approach reveals that valuation work is shaped by different moral imaginaries and ontological beliefs about what ‘the land market’ is and what it ought to be in the moral economy of land. The paper discusses the implications of these imaginaries with regard to discussions about the financialisation of valuation and concludes with an agenda for future research.