The Personal Life of Debt, livre ebook

• The first full-length ethnography of indebted people in Britain.

• Challenges the stigmatizing way in which those who ‘hide their bills under the sofa’ are often characterised; showing how debt connects to financial regulation, housing and child protection (things that are usually kept separate but interrelate in actual life)

• Of interest to a broad audience, from academics and students in sociology, anthropology, social and public policy, to debt advice organisations and welfare policy makers.

• In a field that can be demoralising, this book offers some optimistic responses.

Runner-up for the 2026 BSA Philip Abrams Memorial Prize

As the cost of living rises, British households face unprecedented levels of debt. But many commentators characterise those who stash away envelopes, leave telephones ringing, or hide from debt collectors as irresponsible.

The first full-length ethnography of debt problems in Britain, this book uses long-term fieldwork on a southern English housing estate to give a sensitive retelling of the everyday lives of indebted people.

It argues that the inequalities of debt go beyond economic questions to include the way state coercion hinders people’s efforts to define what they truly value. Indeed, from finance to housing and even parenthood, the potential for dispossession has become a pervasive method of power that strikes at the heart of personal life.

Introduction

Interlude 1: Economic Life and Social Distinction in Woldham

Part I. Expressions of Indebtedness

1. ‘You Can’t Argue with Them’: Debt and the Struggle over Value

2. Making Debt into an Object: The Work of Debt Advisers

Interlude 2: Debt and the Household

Part II. Prospects of Expropriation

3. Unsettled Homes: The Interruptible Futures and Violable Spaces of Rented Housing

4. ‘But I Do Wish Better for My Kids’: Parental Attachment and Forced Child Removal

5. The Arts of Indebted Optimism: Between Fiction and Reality

Conclusion