Routledge Handbook on Debt

This handbook brings together scholarship from different disciplines, institutions and locations to contribute critically to how the social sciences think about – with, against, beyond – debt.

By bringing together the best specialists in the field, this handbook both captures and feeds the theoretical and political debates on a subject of burning relevance. Across the diversity of theoretical and methodological approaches, a common thread to the contributions is a concern with power relations and inequalities. Who owes what to whom? To what extent is debt both shaped by and constitutive of social and power relations while crystallizing or giving rise to individual and collective aspirations, resistances and struggles? How is debt structured by long historical trajectories and broad trends that operate at a global level, while at the same time intertwining with institutions, organizations and interpersonal relations specific to singular contexts and periods of history? The handbook features a combination of theoretical and empirical chapters, but overall their purpose is to make an analytical contribution to some of the most relevant public issues of our time. The volume gives empirical examples from a wide variety of geographical locations, moving away from a narrow Euro-American-centric vision. It also explores the case of countries whose banking and debt systems are relatively unknown.

The handbook is an invaluable resource for readers who—besides debt itself--are interested in money, banking, economy, social obligation, poverty, and inequality.

Isabelle Guérin is Senior Research Fellow at IRD (French National Research Institute on Sustainable Development), affiliated at Cessma (Social Science Center Studies in African, American and Asian Worlds, Université Paris CIté/IRD/Inalco).

Deborah James is a professor at LSE (London School of Economics). She is an anthropologist of economy, exploring indebtedness and advice in particular, and her research is focused on South Africa and, more recently, the UK.

Federico Neiburg is professor of anthropology at the National Museum, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, where he is also the founder of the Research Group on Culture and Economy (NuCEC).

Horacio Ortiz is associate professor at the School of Social Development and Public Policy, Fudan University, China and senior researcher at Université Paris Dauphine – PSL, IRISSO, UMR 7170, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, France

Ndongo Samba Sylla (PhD) is a Senegalese Development Economist. He is currently the Dakar-based Research and Policy Director for Africa of the International Development Economics Associates (IDEAs), an organization that brings together economists from the Global South.