International Sociology and International Sociology Reviews

‘Inflation in everyday life’ is our Topic of the Month for September 2025. On this topic, enjoy Free Access this month to the article by María Clara Hernández (Universidad Nacional de General Sarmiento, Argentina) and Mariana Luzzi (Universidad Nacional de San Martín, Argentina) published in International Sociology, Coping with inflation: Social perceptions and ordinary measures of price increases in contemporary Argentina. Read on to know more about the authors’ trajectory and work.

María Clara Hernández

Mariana Luzzi

Why are you working on this topic? Could you share an experience, a fact or a person who made you get engaged in that research?

M.C. Hernández: In Argentina, inflation has become a persistent feature of the national economy. It has re-emerged as a problematic issue over at least the past decade and a half, remaining a matter of public concern. On the one hand, within the political sphere, it has been articulated as a governmental priority; on the other hand, individuals, households, and organizations have been compelled to adapt daily to its continued presence. Despite the significance and enduring character of this phenomenon in the national economy, academic production on the subject in Argentina has been relatively limited (though more abundant than in most other countries). Such scholarship has tended to be restricted to specific periods and topics and, with few exceptions, has not been situated within the tradition of economic sociology. Within this context, my research aims to reintroduce this perspective in order to examine how inflation concretely shapes the economic lives of households, with particular attention to its manifestation in their everyday economic practices.

M. Luzzi: In Argentina during the second half of the 20th century, inflation was a long-standing concern for citizens and state officials alike. It was also an important research topic in local economics, particularly during the 1980s and 1990s. By contrast, local sociologists have paid very little attention to the subject. Until the 2010s, for example, no research had focused on the effect of inflation on household economies and the everyday monetary practices of their members.

This was the main reason for my interest in the topic, but I did not conduct any empirical research on it until the pandemic. In 2021, as part of a broader project examining the interconnected dynamics of household debt and care work during the pandemic, I investigated the impact of the pandemic on the household finances of elderly individuals. During fieldwork, it became clear that inflation was a significant issue that could be examined through the lens of both economic sociology and the sociology of money.

Do you have any video, recorded conference, or online material that you would like us to share with others?

M. Luzzi: I do not have any shareable material related to this line of work. But you can find below the video of the talk organized in 2025 at the University of California Irvine around my latest book (The Dollar. How the US Currency became a popular currency in Argentina, University of New Mexico Press, 2023), written with my colleague Ariel Wilkis: https://www.socsci.uci.edu/newsevents/events/2025/2025-03-04-the-dollar.php

What would you emphasize about your academic trajectory? Can you highlight which have been your academic positions, universities, awards, departments and research centers?

M.C. Hernández: My academic career began at the National University of La Plata (Argentina), where I took part in various collaborative research projects. There, I conducted the research that would become my undergraduate thesis, supported by a fellowship from the Scientific Research Commission of the Province of Buenos Aires (CIC). I later received a doctoral fellowship from the National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET), which allowed me to begin my doctoral studies. In this capacity, I joined the Institute of Sciences at the National University of General Sarmiento (ICI-UNGS), where I also taught the courses Sociology and Contemporary Socioeconomic Problems. In 2024, I earned my PhD in Social Sciences from the National University of General Sarmiento and the Institute for Economic and Social Development (UNGS-IDES). During this period, I participated in research teams and also taught the course Analysis of Social, Economic, and Environmental Processes at the Institute of Social Sciences and Administration, National University Arturo Jauretche (UNAJ).

M. Luzzi: I am a Sociologist trained both in Argentina (University of Buenos Aires) and France (École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales). I am currently a researcher at the National Council of Scientific and Technological Research (CONICET) and Associate Professor of Sociology at the Interdisciplinary School of Advanced Social Studies (EIDAES), University of San Martín (Argentina). I have previously been Assistant Professor at the University of Buenos Aires and Associate Professor at the University of General Sarmiento, both in Argentina. My main areas of research are economic sociology and the sociology of money. I have conducted research on economic crisis, alternative currencies, monetary plurality, economic reparations and financialization in Latin America.