Bill Maurer

He was chair of the Department of Anthropology at UC Irvine from 2005 to 2011 and was associate dean for research and graduate studies in the social sciences from 2011-13.

[9] He is the recipient of four major National Science Foundation research grants on topics ranging from the cultures of international finance to mobile money and private digital currencies.

[17] Maurer’s research encompasses ethnographic and historical work on the Caribbean offshore tax haven economy, specifically in the British Virgin Islands, Islamic banking and alternative currencies, and the material technologies and cultural practices money, finance, and law.

This work highlights the role of colonial legal regimes and national sovereignty claims in the uneven geography of global finance.

His book Mutual Life, Limited: Islamic Banking, Alternative Currencies, Lateral Reason received the Victor Turner Prize for Ethnographic Writing in 2005.