Abstract

MARAMBIO-TAPIA, Alejandro. Mediations between Indebtedness and Consumption: The Construction of Financial Consumers and the Domestication of Credit in Chile. rev.estud.soc. [online]. 2023, n.85, pp.41-58.  Epub May 29, 2023. ISSN 0123-885X.  https://doi.org/10.7440/res85.2023.03.

Chile’s specific form of capitalism has given rise to a class of financial consumers who navigate a consumer society with low incomes but easy access to credit. As a result, being in debt has become a common expectation in Chilean society. In this study, we conducted 46 in-depth interviews with indebted financial consumers to examine the practices, materialities, and moral and social evaluations surrounding credit and debt. We explored how these concepts are reinterpreted and domesticated in a context where indebtedness is deeply entrenched. Through our analysis, we identified three interrelated processes: (1) moral operations that allow for the separation of credit from debt; (2) the redefinition of prices, values, and materialities through various credit practices used by financial consumers to survive in a precarious consumer society; and (3) the subjective evaluation and categorization of debt levels, which subverts conventional quantifications and categorizations of debt. Our findings demonstrate how financial consumers can unmoralize indebtedness and redefine credit, providing opportunities for counter-agency, collectivization, and politicization of indebted subjects. This article contributes to the discussion on the meaning of debt, provides insight into the financialization of everyday life, and offers a perspective on installation and participation in a consumer society from the viewpoint of subordinated subjects in the Global South.

Keywords : consumption; credit; debt; financial consumer; financialization.

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