91TV

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Course Description

DEVS 392-001

Placed within Political Economy, the concept of debt reveals the power and the politics surrounding the relations between a creditor and a debtor. Seen thus, debt can be viewed as a moral obligation and as a method of disciplining populations within the structures of neoliberal governance. This course, therefore, presents an opportunity to engage with the social practices and the economic structures that frame the historical instances of debt as well as the modern-day manifestation of debt in society. We hope to ask several pertinent questions that relate to the political economy of debt: What are the forms of debt that we encounter in contemporary development processes? Who benefits and why from the creation of debt? What roles do social institutions such as nation states, global governance institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank, play in the mediation of debt? How does debt-led development affect the organization of social life? In which case, who are the victims of the forms of debt and how do the relations of debt create different experiences of dispossession for individuals and communities along the lines of gender, race, and class?