Varieties of Impact Investing

Philip Balsiger is Professor of Economic Sociology at the University of Neuchatel, Switzerland. Daniel Burnier Lecturer at the University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland. Noé Kabouche is a PhD student in Sociology at the University of Neuchatel, Switzerland and Sciences Po Paris, France.

1. The Pursuit of Impact in the Specificities of Place and Time – Philip Balsiger, Daniel Burnier and Noé Kabouche


2. Impact and ‘Impact’: Labelling and Identity in Finance – Marc Brightman and Aneil Tripathy





Part 1: Translating the Impact Label into National and Transnational Contexts


3. Socio-genesis of the Impact Investing World in France – Eve Chiapello and Camille Roth


4. The Regional Development of an International Phenomenon: How the Geneva Financial Field Framed Impact Investing – Noé Kabouche, Philip Balsiger and Daniel Burnier


5. Impact Investing at the Aga Khan Development Network: Origins of Innovative Financing Mechanisms – Farwa Sial and Jessica Sklair


6. Leverage as a Political Tactic: The Case of Social Impact Investing in Britain – Philipp Golka


7. Social Impact Investing in Italy: A Case of Weak Financialization? – Davide Caselli


8. Top-down Plus Bottom-up: Building the Market for Impact Investing in Spain – Lisa Hehenberger and Guillermo Casanovas





Part 2: Enacting Impact in Investment Practices


9. Defining and Implementing ‘Impact’: Negotiating Meanings and Shifting Interpretations – Claudia Campisano


10. Social Impact as a Negotiated and Collective Process – Guillaume Dumont


11. The Social Structures of Impact: A Case Study of French Impact Startups – Vincent Himmer


12. Market Exchange and Power Cornerstones: Local Understandings of Impact Investing in Nigeria – Elena Christodoulou and Shonali Banerjee


13. ‘Low-hanging Mangoes’: On Social Impact Bonds in Colombia – Natalia Gómez Muñoz


14. Blockchain as an ‘Anti-politics Machine’: Web3-based Impact Investing and the Reproduction of Inequalities – Riccardo De Cristano


15. Conclusion – Emily Barman