Lived Economies of Default

Consumer credit borrowing – using credit cards, store cards and personal loans – is an important and routine part of many of our lives. But what happens when these everyday forms of borrowing go ‘bad’, when people cannot, or will not, repay? Drawing on research from the interior of the debt collections industry, it examines precisely how this ever more sophisticated, globally connected market functions. Looking at the issue of consumer credit default from the point of view of the borrower, Joe Deville follows a journey of default, from debtors’ accounts of their borrowing practices, to the intrusion of collections technologies into their homes and everyday lives, to debtors’ attempts to seek outside help.