Precarious debt: Microfinance subjects and intergenerational dependency in Cambodia

WN Green, J Estes - Antipode, 2019 - Wiley Online Library
Antipode, 2019Wiley Online Library
This paper tells a story of debt within a rural Cambodian family in order to understand how
microfinance produces more‐than‐individual financial subjects that are entangled in
changing social relations of dependency. We draw upon 20 months of joint ethnographic
research in Cambodia, where the microfinance industry is one of the largest per capita in the
world. Informed by Judith Butler's notions of precariousness and precarity, we argue that
even in the context of deepening financialisation, people's lives remain dependent upon …
Abstract
This paper tells a story of debt within a rural Cambodian family in order to understand how microfinance produces more‐than‐individual financial subjects that are entangled in changing social relations of dependency. We draw upon 20 months of joint ethnographic research in Cambodia, where the microfinance industry is one of the largest per capita in the world. Informed by Judith Butler's notions of precariousness and precarity, we argue that even in the context of deepening financialisation, people's lives remain dependent upon others, especially within families. We analyse how these family relations of dependency are reworked along generational lines and spatially stretched due to precarious economic conditions of indebtedness, household migration, and distant labour markets. We conclude that reframing financial subjectivity in terms of precariousness helps us to analyse the relationship between households and financial markets, as well as inform a critical politics of finance.
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