Producing trust, knowledge and expertise in financial markets: The global hedge fund industry ‘represents’ itself

The global financial crisis increased critique towards hedge funds, raising the possibility of unprecedented global regulation which threatened to put some hedge funds out of business. In the face of threats to operational freedom and market advantage, hedge funds responded by engaging in a debate about their future. This study explores discursive strategies employed by the Alternative Investment Management Association, the global hedge fund trade body, to produce trust in the hedge fund industry and its institutions. A set of defined and overlapping trust practices are introduced as a means of analysing power and trust production in the ongoing discursive shifts of global systems.