A Feminist Reading of Debt

The concept of finance initially appears abstract and indifferent to categories such as gender. This sharp intervention defiantly develops a specifically feminist understanding of debt, examining the relation between debt and social reproduction and showing debt's impact on women and members of the LGBTQ+ community. Elaborating on the relationship between debt and the rise of conservative forces in Latin America, the book develops a reading of debt as 'counter-revolution', intimately linked to gendered violence and patriarchal notions of the family. Yet, rather than seeing these forces as insurmountable, the authors show ways in which debt can be resisted, drawing on concrete experiences and practices from Latin America and around the world. This book contains interviews with women in Argentina and Brazil which reveal the real-life impact of debt, and how it falls mainly on the shoulders of women, from the household to the large-scale effects of national debt and austerity. However, through open discussions around work, prisons, domestic labour, agriculture, family, abortion and housing, a narrative of resistance appears.