Spaces of Interest: financial governance and debt subjectivity

Abstract

This paper considers the phenomenon of financialization, the integration of everyday life activities into the logic of finance capital, and the spatio-temporal fixes attached to emergent dynamics of capital circulation. I analyze the growing industry of Alternative Finance Service Providers (AFSPs), focusing on the rapid expansion of payday and title loan lending. I argue that the increased presence of AFSPs has occurred in conjunction with practices of finance capitalism, which serve to constitute a specific economic subject. Examining the practices of TMX Finance LLC, the largest title loan company in the United States, I argue that the preferential distribution of debt dramatically shapes the space we live in, and seeks to order the bodies that occupy those spaces.