«Failed mortgage debt, failed person»: The financialization of housing and life in Catalonia

Melissa García Lamarca

doi:10.3989/arbor.2019.793n3002

«Failed mortgage debt, failed person»: The financialization of housing and life in Catalonia

Melissa García Lamarca

Institute of Environmental Sciences and Technologies (ICTA)

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Research

Abstract

© 2019 CSIC. Based on eleven months of engaged ethnographic research with the Platform for People Affected by Mortgages (PAH) in Barcelona and Sabadell, this article proposes that the financialization of housing goes hand in glove with the financialization of life itself, which includes subjectivity and the body. The financialization of life occurs when life is subsumed into the mechanisms of rent extraction through the circuits of (urban) capital accumulation, a process of proletarianization. This article illustrates how, upon the impossibility of paying one’s mortgage, life proletarianized within the mortgage relation becomes a failed life. These arguments are developed theoretically in relation to political economy and through the lived experience of people unable to pay their mortgage.

Original language	English
Article number	a514
Journal	Arbor
Volume	195
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.3989/arbor.2019.793n3002
Publication status	Published - 1 Jan 2019

Keywords

Catalonia
Financialization
Mortgage debt
Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca (PAH)
Proletarianization

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abstract = "{\textcopyright} 2019 CSIC. Based on eleven months of engaged ethnographic research with the Platform for People Affected by Mortgages (PAH) in Barcelona and Sabadell, this article proposes that the financialization of housing goes hand in glove with the financialization of life itself, which includes subjectivity and the body. The financialization of life occurs when life is subsumed into the mechanisms of rent extraction through the circuits of (urban) capital accumulation, a process of proletarianization. This article illustrates how, upon the impossibility of paying one{\textquoteright}s mortgage, life proletarianized within the mortgage relation becomes a failed life. These arguments are developed theoretically in relation to political economy and through the lived experience of people unable to pay their mortgage.",

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AB - © 2019 CSIC. Based on eleven months of engaged ethnographic research with the Platform for People Affected by Mortgages (PAH) in Barcelona and Sabadell, this article proposes that the financialization of housing goes hand in glove with the financialization of life itself, which includes subjectivity and the body. The financialization of life occurs when life is subsumed into the mechanisms of rent extraction through the circuits of (urban) capital accumulation, a process of proletarianization. This article illustrates how, upon the impossibility of paying one’s mortgage, life proletarianized within the mortgage relation becomes a failed life. These arguments are developed theoretically in relation to political economy and through the lived experience of people unable to pay their mortgage.

KW - Catalonia

KW - Financialization

KW - Mortgage debt

KW - Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca (PAH)

KW - Proletarianization

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