Spectropolis: The Enchantment Of Capital In Singapore

 In Singapore, the financial center of Southeast Asia, hyperurbanization and commercial development exist alongside enduring belief in the economic power of ghosts: in their ability to control the flows of money and value and to determine the outcome of investments and wagers. Spectropolis explores the unlikely collusion of these two systems, demonstrating both the productive role of popular beliefs in the modern world and the surprising correlations between “late” capitalism and the workings of the spirit realm.

Detailing the logic and practices of Singapore’s ghost economy-from performing exorcisms on real estate development sites to offering money and commodities to the dead as a hedge against precarious real-world transactions-Joshua Comaroff shows