A recurring leitmotif in the social sciences, as well as in diverse theologies and the secular humanities, is a normative discourse that condemns debt and praises equity. For example, predating Judaism, iska contracts were designed to avoid
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Beyond debt and equity
Dissecting the red herring and a path forward for normative critiques of finance
Aaron Z. Pitluck
The emergence of the global debt society
Governmentality and profit extraction through fabricated abundance and imposed scarcity in Peru and Spain
Ismael Vaccaro, Eric Hirsch, and Irene Sabaté
This article is about debt and its effects on the indebted people and communities that are subject to it. The unprecedented global growth of the second half of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries was sustained, at a national but also a
On money debt and morality
Some reflections on the contribution of economic anthropology
Chris A. Gregory
Peebles, in a recent review of the anthropology of debt and credit, found an ‘astonishing consistency’ in the moral valuation of credit which is everywhere given a positive evaluation relative to debt. But why is this? Does it apply to creditors as well? What are the theoretical implications of these questions for economic anthropology?
In Social Anthropology/Anthropologie sociale
- Published (Print):
- 01 Nov 2012
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 380–396 (16 total)
An anthropological contribution to rethinking the relationship between money, debt, and economic growth
Richard H. Robbins
“Before there was money, there was debt. Before there was an American republic, there was America’s national debt. Over the last three decades, the neoliberal reordering of political economy produced a ‘debtor nation,’ a ‘republic of debtors
Debt collection as labour discipline
The work of finance in a Myanmar squatter settlement
Stephen Campbell
Critical studies of development in the global South have called attention to the failure of existing modernisation projects to deliver on promises of full employment in well‐remunerated wage labour. Despite this shortfall in formal employment, non‐normative labour forms have proliferated globally, alongside mass expansion of financial markets since the late 20th century. In the present article, I take up these multiple trends as interrelated phenomena, inquiring into the work of finance in the extraction of value where individuals labour outside of formal employment. The argument, in brief, is that manifold debt relations have facilitated an effective extraction of value from non‐normative forms of capitalist labour in the informal economy. This argument contrasts with positions that see informal labour as non‐capitalist, or posit such labour as lying outside class relations of exploitation. Ethnographically, I engage these issues through a study of heterogeneous livelihoods among residents of a squatter settlement located in an industrial zone on the outskirts of Myanmar’s former capital, Yangon.
In Social Anthropology/Anthropologie sociale
- Published (Print):
- 01 Aug 2020
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 729–742 (13 total)
The ‘age of the market’ and the regime of debt
The role of credit in the transformation of pastoral Mongolia1
David Sneath
Since the decollectivisation of the rural economy in the 1990s, Mongolian pastoralists have become subject to the new property regime of the ‘age of the market’ (). Formerly collective assets, such as livestock, machinery and buildings, have become private property and land is increasingly becoming a resource available for private ownership. International finance and development agencies have advocated credit schemes for pastoralists faced with uneven annual income and the servicing of debt has become a central burden for an increasing number of Mongolian households. In the neoliberal era, the pastoral sector has become highly vulnerable to climatic variation. The distribution of environmental risks alongside processes of collateralisation has expanded the sphere of monetised relations and made pastoralists dependent upon increasingly global markets for commodities and credit. This new regime of debt has interesting historical parallels with the Qing‐era barter trade that impoverished pre‐revolutionary Mongolia.
In Social Anthropology/Anthropologie sociale
- Published (Print):
- 01 Nov 2012
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 458–473 (15 total)
Debt, Peonage and Dependency in the kafalah System
Hadrami Migratory Experience in Kuwait
Abdullah M. Alajmi
Studies of immigrants in Kuwait focus on structural aspects overlooking sociohistorical elements and meso-level relationships that develop through migration. This ethnography shows that the immigrant's perspective and the history of the relationship between the receiving society and the immigrant community are both essential for establishing broader and thicker analyses of reality. It argues that because Hadramis and Kuwaiti sponsors were historically linked in personal exchanges originating in the Kuwaiti domestic realm, the meaning and practices of sponsorship comprise a unique migratory and work experience. Normally the immigrant–sponsor relationship is conveyed in terms of pseudokinship, yet references to moral debts and dependency reveal forms of exploitation and dominance. Hadrami–Kuwaiti relationships do not produce significant economic outcomes for the sponsor. Rather, Hadramis are symbolically valued within local hierarchies. This symbolic value has sustained a solid Hadrami presence in Kuwait and secured an income for retiring immigrants at home.
In Anthropology of the Middle East
- Published (Print):
- 01 Mar 2014
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 18–41 (24 total)
“Your debts are our problem”
The politicization of debt in Azerbaijan
Tristam Barrett
. The case was over the nonpayment of a dollar-denominated bank debt. The debtor had lost his job and absconded, so the court ordered the guarantor to repay the loan. Unable to repay it, he was found to be in contempt and threatened with imprisonment. He
Empowering or impoverishing through credit
Small-scale producers and the Plan Chontalpa in Tabasco, Mexico
Gisela Lanzas and Matthew Whittle
asset. She quickly learned that the proximate factor leading to most land sales was debt: farmers had taken loans they were unable to repay. Heavily indebted farmers often lack the ability to continue to invest in production, so the land becomes
The Debts of War
Bifurcated Veterans’ Mobilization and Political Order in Post-settlement El Salvador
Ralph Sprenkels
politics thus allowed for a platform on which to stage war contributions as historical debts owed by both party and state. Veterans at the top and at the bottom of the party hierarchy played distinct roles. As leaders drew on historical networks for
In Conflict and Society
- Published (Print):
- 01 Jun 2019
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 79–95 (17 total)