Money from nothing - Indebtness and aspiration in South Africa (Paperback)

Credit, and its flip side, debt, emerges as a fundamental lens to understand the workings of both social mobility and economic disenfranchisement, precariously inter-twined in the New South Africa. James makes complex theory accessible, combining it with page turning ethnography - utterly captivating! - Dinah Rajak, Senior Lecturer in Anthropology, University of Sussex and author of In Good Company: An Anatomy of Corporate Social Responsibility South Africa's national project of financial inclusion aims to extend credit to black South Africans as a critical aspect of abolishing apartheid's legacy. Money from Nothing explores the contradictory dynamics inherent in this project, and captures the lived experience of indebtedness for many millions who attempt to improve their positions (or merely sustain existing livelihoods) in this complex economy. Deborah James shows the varied ways in which access to credit is intimately bound up with identity and status-making. The precarious nature of aspirations of upward mobility and the economic relations of debt which sustain people is revealed by the shadowy side of indebtedness and potential for new forms of oppression and exclusion which can accompany projects of upliftment. She reflects on the apparent absurdity of a situation where consumers' borrowing is, on the one hand, checked by being blacklisted with the credit bureaux, yet borrowers clamour for a `credit information amnesty' while lenders continue to lend with impunity. James concludes that the paternalism of a system in which consumers' bank accounts are under `external control' intensifies the `advantage to creditor' principle that has long underpinned South African consumer law.