Diverse economies of debt : the possibilities for socially useful finance in peer-to-peer finance and reward-based crowdfunding

Abstract

In the wake of the global financial crisis of 2007–8 and the persistence of mainstream forms of finance, this thesis aims to explore the possibilities for achieving more socially useful forms of finance with particular reference to case studies of peer-to-peer lending and reward-based crowdfunding in the United Kingdom. The thesis is situated within the diverse economies theoretical approach to human geography. Despite the centrality of finance to the wider economy, diverse economies theory has to date largely neglected finance. As such, the social relation of credit-debt that sits at the heart of money and finance has not been theorised in ways that foreground the diversity of ‘the social’ and open out political possibilities. The thesis analyses the diverse social relations of credit-debt as relatively discrete processes composed of spatial, temporal and subjectivity-creation practices. Peer-to-peer lending and reward-based crowdfunding are shown to assemble particular kinds of socialities that not only shift over time in relation to the mainstream, but which also exhibit the persistent tensions and possibilities that mark more socially useful forms of finance. The findings from this research strongly suggest that there are three main constraints on the ability of alternative forms of finance to reconstruct the sociality of the creditor-debtor relationship in different ways: the problem of creditworthiness; subjectivities of debt which privilege the creditor; and the power relations at work in the creation of alternative finance.