Navigating Financialization in Rural India: Stock Market Participation Through Professional Communities

The rapid expansion of stock market participation and digital brokerage platforms marks a deepening of financialization in India. This process remains better understood in urban than in rural areas, particularly in the Global South. Drawing on ethnographic research with rural government school teachers in Gujarat, this article asks how rural investors learn, navigate and sustain participation in the stock market. Since fellow teachers within the same school share a professional identity and socio-economic needs, they collectively operate as one community of practice to make sense of their finances. Within this larger community, a subset of teachers who feel compelled to participate in the stock market but often lack a peer group in their native village to think through the stock market formed a second community of practice. Marked by obligation and reciprocity, this smaller community routinely engaged in consultation and discussion, used common mobile applications, provided mutual help and managed portfolio risks. We argue that these rural nested profession-based communities of practice develop investing competence, shape investment strategies and sustain stock market participation. The article contributes to financialization scholarship by identifying communities of practice as a mechanism that enables and sustains financial market participation in rural India.