Paper short abstract:

Exploring the interface between community, market and the state, the paper shows how South African householders’ indebtedness contradictorily involves both detachment from dependents and intensified obligations/embeddedness

Paper long abstract:

In South Africa, with upward mobility much aspired-to but seldom attained, householders must spend money they have not yet earned. Requesting credit both from formal institutions and moneylenders/financial mutuals positions them uneasily: in order to disconnect/disembed themselves from dependents in one register, they acquire intensified obligations in another. The value sought is based on models of class distinction/"respectability", yet its seekers, becoming indebted, often spiral into economic crisis. The freedom to establish value in an optative, performative manner may be compromised. Exploring the interface between community, market and the state, the paper challenges binaries of political/moral economy, and formal/informal economy.