Financialisation and contested citizenship of ‘failed’ debtors: how overindebted people negotiate their status and rights

ABSTRACT

Centring in attention on overindebted people, the article examines ‘practices of claim-making’ from the perspective of ‘failed citizens’, insiders who lose their rights within constitutional democracies because they are perceived as failing to live up to its norms. We examined these practices in the context of the Czech debt collection system, which gives excessive power to lending institutions and bailiffs and severely limits debtors’ social, labour and privacy rights. We show how the processes of financialisation, combined with an internalised discourse of individual responsibility are shaping the possibilities to translate the experience of exploitation into claims.

KEYWORDS:

• Debts
• citizenship
• financialisation
• agency
• Czech Republic

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Ivana Lukeš Rybanská for her detailed comments on the first draft of this article. We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers and editors for their helpful and constructive feedback.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. We used local gatekeepers, such as community workers and representatives of social support initiatives. The gatekeepers connected us with both clients and debtors from their personal networks. In two cases, the gatekeepers themselves disclosed their personal experiences with overindebtedness. Further people were recruited through the network of our respondents during the interviews (snowball).

2. In the Czech debt collection system, the subject who issues the first payment order has the right to seize wages – all other creditors depend on bailiffs (Hábl et al. 2021).

3. The social benefit system was usually the main income for mothers who were alone with small children (due to a lack of accessible childcare and difficulty combining childcare and employment).

4. The perception was different when it came to NGOs offering social services. They were often perceived as supportive, allies in the process of claiming benefits.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Czech Science Foundation [grant number GA20-04863S].