Resisting ‘Peripheral Debt Systems’: Housing Movements against Financialization in Chile

Abstract

In the context of the financialization of housing and everyday life, mortgage credits and other forms of indebtedness have become key factors. Recent studies have explored the idea of debt as power relations mainly in the Global North. Through mixed methods, this article examines the notion of debt systems in emerging capitalist economies, and illustrates how housing movements and people without access to formal credits are organising themselves. A thematic analysis from both in-depth interviews with representatives of three housing movements, and data from Chilean national financial surveys, reveals three main results: the interplay of different forms of debt to form a ‘peripheral debt system’; the need to explore the formation of gender and racial inequalities under financialization; and how individual struggles are replaced by collective responses and solidarity from both financial and emotional dimensions. The authors call for a more grounded analysis of debt in order to examine marginalised groups and heterogeneous types of indebtedness on the periphery and to trace further comparisons with other housing movements globally in the context of financialization.

Keywords

• debt
• financialization of housing
• housing movements
• peripheral debt systems
• peripheral financialization