Paper details

Paper authors	Anupama Ranawana
In panel on	Precarity and Debt: The Vicissitudes of Credit and “Upliftment” in Asia and Africa
Paper presenter(s) will be presenting	In-Person / Online

Abstract

Personal and government debt have long been noted as emergent trends in the global economy (Gilbert 2018). Sri Lanka’s post-war economy is almost textbook, with the government’s debt to GDP ratio standing between 75%-94%, (LBO 2018), alongside high levels of personal debt. Amongst the latter are Sri Lanka’s women entrepreneurs who, due to socio-political dilemmas associated with traditional loan-taking, seek access to finance through micro-credit. High levels of interest, and the aggressiveness of the debt collector, further trap the debtor in a vicious cycle of owing and being owned.
However, entrepreneurial activity – especially that of women- is seen by government and development actors as a way in which to boost growth in the post-war economy, and taking on debt is understood as a natural part of such activity (Parr 2018). What manifests, however, is a quotidian economics of debt-driven development (Elias & Robert 2013), that concretizes the extractive relationship between individual, state, and international development, an issue that is highlighted severally in academic and media commentary. This paper, applying a feminist and decolonial lens, wonders at new ways to reflect about and beyond this ‘crisis, and thus challenge epistemic and ethical boundaries. In particular, the paper reflects on what is further obscured or silenced- such as caste, gender and religion- within these extractive relationships.

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