Noelle Stout to Present at Approaches to Capitalism Workshop at Stanford University on April 10 at 4pm!
Drawing on ongoing ethnographic research in the Californian Central Valley, Professor Noelle Stout presents research-in-progress which suggests that homeowners’ encounters with loan modification programs are profoundly reshaping the social institution of mortgaging. Professor Stout advances a perennial anthropological inquiry regarding credit-debt relations: what role does unpaid debt play in fostering social obligations? By applying models of debt formulated in so-called gift economies to a late-capitalist cultural milieu, this research shows how obligations between people remain central to financial markets, which are often characterized as devoid of mutuality.