Debt, Vulnerability, and Forms of Care


The question of debt, in particular, has defined the fate of many countries from the Global South. In addition to debts accrued by states through lending agreements with other states and international monetary institutions, there are individual debts which have had a direct effect on governance policy: punishing and criminalizing debtors as well as fostering notions of individual irresponsibility that deflect both from debt-based forms of subjection and modes of resistance to them. The withdrawal of state funding for social services in neoliberal governance has produced forms of vulnerability and the rise of debt that facilitates social control. How this happens, and what interventions are possible both locally and internationally, will form key questions for participants in these workshops. Another question will concern the efforts and struggles against the contemporary politics of financial debt and indebtedness. Finally, these workshops will also examine how the colonial and imperial histories of debt and bankruptcy have helped to form the circumstances of the present world, and seek to understand experimental efforts to present and overcome this legacy.


Materials