Dynamic Womxn of UCI Ally Award

Fellow, Filene Research Institute

Member, Sigma X

Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science

Visiting Faculty, Microsoft Research New England, Cambridge, MA

Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Fostering Undergraduate Research, UC Irvine

Lauds and Laurels Award for Faculty Achievement, UC Irvine Alumnae Association, UC Irvine

American Anthropological Association

American Ethnological Society

Society for Cultural Anthropology

Association for Political and Legal Anthropology

Society for Humanistic Anthropology

Law and Society Association

Royal Institute for Linguistics and Anthropology (Netherlands)

Social Science History Association

Primitive and Nonmetallic Money

TOKENS - Culture, Connections, Communities

Payments are Getting Political Again

Finance as ‘bizarre bazaar’: Using documents as a source of ethnographic knowledge

Social Payments: Innovation, Trust, Bitcoin, and the Sharing Economy

Dean of UCI's School of Social Sciences for the past decade, anthropology professor Bill Maurer recently agreed to five more years at the helm of the school with the largest percentage of undergraduates majoring in their departments. 

In this UCI Podcast, Maurer describes how he morphed from reluctant leader to a third term as dean, reflects on his first decade in the role and looks ahead to what’s next as the School of Social Sciences continues its mission to “create positive change and improve the human condition.” Maurer also shares why he was drawn to anthropology and offers a quick Cryptocurrency 101 lesson, including the potential benefits and drawbacks of digital currency.

This episode of the UCI Podcast was recorded in the podcast studio in the ANTrepreneur Center. Music for this episode of the UCI Podcast, titled “Wide Awake,” provided by The 126ers via the Audio Library in YouTube Studio.

UCI Podcast: What's next in the School of Social Sciences?

Mutual Life, Limited: Islamic Banking, Alternative Currencies, Lateral Reason

How Would You Like to Pay?: How Technology Is Changing the Future of Money

Recharting the Caribbean: Land, Law, and Citizenship in the British Virgin Islands

Pious Property: Islamic Mortgages in the United States

In 1965, the University of California, Irvine was founded with a mission to catalyze the community and enhance lives through rigorous academics, cutting-edge research, and dedicated public service. Today, we draw on the unyielding spirit of our pioneering faculty, staff and students who arrived on campus with a dream to inspire change and generate new ideas. We believe that true progress is made when different perspectives come together to advance our understanding of the world around us. And we enlighten our communities and point the way to a better future. At UCI, we shine brighter.

UC Irvine

Professor Maurer is a cultural anthropologist and sociolegal scholar. His most recent research looks at how professional communities (payments industry professionals, computer programmers and developers, legal consultants) conceptualize and build financial technology or “fintech,” and how consumers use and experience it. More broadly, his work explores the technological infrastructures and social relations of exchange and payment, from cowries to credit cards and cryptocurrencies. As an anthropologist, he is interested in the broad range of technologies people have used throughout history and across cultures to figure value and conduct transactions. He has particular expertise in alternative and experimental forms of money and finance, payment technologies, and their legal implications. He has published on topics ranging from offshore financial services to mobile phone-enabled money transfers, Islamic finance, alternative currencies, blockchain/distributed ledger systems, and the future of money.

He is the Director of the Institute for Money, Technology and Financial Inclusion (www.imtfi.uci.edu). From 2008-2018, he coordinated research in over 40 countries on how new payment technologies impact people’s well being. Highlights from IMTFI’s research were published in Money at the Margins: Global Perspectives on Technology, Financial Inclusion, and Design (with Smoki Musaraj and Ivan Small). Since 2018, IMTFI has been the Filene Center of Excellence in Emerging Technology. With Filene, Maurer has been exploring how fintech impacts the credit union movement, exploring topics ranging from algorithmic bias in consumer-facing applications of AI, to the often-ambiguous lessons fintech apps teach their users. His research has had an impact on US and global policies for mobile payment and financial access, and it has been been discussed in venues ranging from Bloomberg BusinessWeek to NPR’s Marketplace and the Financial Times.

Payments Industry

Anthropology

Cryptocurrencies

Money and Finance

Consumer Finance

UCI Faculty Website

Wikipedia Page

Google Scholar Citations

A Cultural History of Money

Paid - Tales of Dongles, Checks, and Other Money Stuff

MONEY AT THE MARGINS - Global Perspectives on Technology, Financial Inclusion, and Design

Data: NOW BIGGER AND BETTER!

What is a Promissory Note?

A cap on credit card fees would hurt department stores most

Why do we toss coins into fountains?

UC Irvine welcomes the Year of the Dragon with performances, cultural activities

D.C. Is Now Enforcing Its Cashless Business Ban: What That Could Mean for You

LA Latinos Took A Big Financial Hit During The Pandemic. Here’s How Some Are Trying To Bounce Back

What Does It Mean to Be Unbanked?

City Council Seeks Ban on Cashless Business

L.A. might ban cashless businesses. Here’s what’s at stake

About the University of California, Irvine: Founded in 1965, UCI is the youngest member of the prestigious Association of American Universities and is ranked among the nation’s top 10 public universities by U.S. News & World Report. The campus has produced three Nobel laureates and is known for its academic achievement, premier research, innovation and anteater mascot. Led by Chancellor Howard Gillman, UCI has more than 36,000 students and offers 224 degree programs. It’s located in one of the world’s safest and most economically vibrant communities and is Orange County’s second-largest employer, contributing $7 billion annually to the local economy and $8 billion statewide. For more on UCI, visit www.uci.edu.

The UCI Podcast

Dean of the School of Social Sciences and Professor, Anthropology and Law

For more information visit: https://ce.uci.edu/

UCI Blockchain Bootcamp - Professor Bill Maurer - Blockchain and the History of Money

Bill Maurer, UCI anthropology and law professor and Institute for Money, Technology and Financial Inclusion director, has been providing expert opinion on digital payment methods to industry experts, news media and others interested in this rapidly growing sector of financial services. Originally developed as a means to provide banking and money transfer services to the poor, mobile money in the developed world offers convenience as well as a potentially unintended advertising channel through which to reach consumers, Maurer says. Watch here as he talks about the new Starbucks Square alliance and how the role of mobile money is changing.

Bill Maurer, Expert on Mobile Money

Bill Maurer is dean of the school of social sciences, director of the Institute for Money, Technology and Financial Inclusion, and professor of anthropology; criminology, law and society; and law at the University of California, Irvine. His talk, "That Touch of Money: The Cashless Past, Some Cashless Futures, and the Public Good," places recent arguments for a cashless future in the context of the history of money, accounting, and payment technologies. This talk was part of the UVA Cyber Innovation & Society Distinguished Speaker Series.

That Touch of Money: The Cashless Past, Some Cashless Futures, and the Public Good

: Economic anthropologist Bill Maurer presents “Blockchains are a Diamond’s Best Friend” at the Contested Property Claims conference, hosted at Aarhus University in December 2016. Maurer examines the technology behind the functioning of such payment forms as Bit Coin, and discusses the consequences of these economic technologies and practices for the future of property relations.

Bill Maurer: Blockchains are a Diamond’s Best Friend

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