Between Life and Debt: Minding the Dignity Gap in the UK Consumer Credit Market (PI)

This interdisciplinary research project investigates the temporal dynamics of indebtedness which leads many people to live invisible lives. Specifically, it asks in what ways is the burden of debt experienced amongst ethnic minorities in the UK’s consumer credit market by offering a qualitative analysis of their lived experiences. Through data visualisation, the project aims to examine the debt management and relief strategies employed by making visible the voices and narratives of those impacted by debt. It will consider how these communities reject, resist and negotiate the debts they undertake.

Fusing a legal and economic analysis, the impact of this project is to make a case for dignity within financial services that challenges the normative framing of problem debt. This research is topical and timely as it examines the consequences of the ‘cost of living crisis’ and the past decade of austerity that has pushed many within the UK to the margins.

I will be working with Dr Samuel Obeng from the Department of Economics and Dr Beatrice Gobbo from the Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies on this project.