The financialization iceberg: a transnational and trans-scalar ethnography of debts in illegal markets (Asia, South America and Europe)

THE PROJECT

This interdisciplinary project (sociology, anthropology, political economy) aims at exploring the submerged part of the “financialisation iceberg”, i.e. the chains of debt created by microfinance in the informal economy and connecting to formal global finance.

It is funded for a period of 17 months (June 2023-December 2024) by Sciences Po and Université Paris Cité.

PROJECT OBJECTIVES

Financialisation is the process by which social reproduction and society as a whole come to depend on the financial markets and obey the speculative logic of monetary capital. The emphasis of financial studies is often placed on the functioning of stock markets, investment funds, banking, offshore assets and their regulatory dimensions, while informal and illegal financial activities are often ignored or dismissed as marginal. However, the former only represent the tip of a financial iceberg.

This project explores the submerged part of the financial iceberg through an exploratory study of the role of debt in illicit markets under the process of financialisation. More specifically, it addresses two connected research questions: i) Does the global increase in private and public debt and the growing need for liquidity stimulate the informal, illicit and illegal economy? ii) How does the digitalisation of finance provide opportunities for the illicit and illegal economy to financialise? To answer these questions, the project will “follow the money”, or more precisely chains of transnational debts through fieldwork in India, Brazil and France. The team will focus on debt chains contributing to the operation of transnational cocaine value chains, on the one hand; and on the other hand on debt chains linking the Indian and Brazilian poor, as well as French banks involved in the funding of microcredit.

TEAM

Gabriel Feltran, CNRS Research Professor, CEE, Sciences Po (Principal Investigator)

Isabelle Guérin, IRD Research Professor, CESSMA, Université Paris Cité (Principal Investigator)

Jeanne Lazarus, CNRS Research Professor, CSO, Sciences Po (Principal Investigator)

David Picherit, CNRS Research Fellow, LESC

Timothée Narring, Associate Researcher, CESSMA