Time Will Tell: Temporalities of Debt in an Urban Neighbourhood in Northeast Brazil

Abstract

Based on extensive fieldwork in Northeast Brazil since 1997, she has published several articles on motherhood, youth, affect and temporality. Her book "Matters of Life and Longing: Female Sterilisation in Northeast Brazil" (2004) is translated into Portuguese and was awarded an Honourable Mention by the Eileen Basker Memorial Prize committee, AAA. This article explores temporalities of debt in a neighbourhood on the outskirts of Recife, Northeast Brazil. It shows how the temporality of lending money is incompatible with the temporality of taking the loan. Lending relates to the present and your trust in the debtor; borrowing means borrowing resources from a speculative future. Decepção [disillusion] may be the experience of the creditor, when a loan is not returned as promised; for the debtor the envisioned future may just not have come about yet. Particularly the frequent loans of credit cards gives rise to emotionally tense situations in the neighbourhood, as 2 credit credit cards are locked in a punctuated time, where dates are crucial. Using an episode that I happened to be part of as point of departure, I argue that decepção is the estrangement experienced, when a moment of trust is thrown back upon you, distorted by the process of time.

Entre Cuidado e Exploração. Quando a Dívida Entra nas Relações de Família e Vizinhança num Bairro Periférico

“…Tanto o credor quanto o devedor esperavam que a dívida fosse liquidada. Conforme discutido por Dalsgaard (2017) sobre temporalidade e dívidas entre vizinhos e amigos no Nordeste do Brasil, a vida das pessoas é incerta, tornando incerto também o futuro reembolso do dinheiro emprestado. Lidando com essa incerteza, elas esperam o melhor e muitas vezes ficam decepcionadas com vizinhos e amigos.…”