A Gift Economy Perspective on the Cycle of Financial Vulnerability

Abstract

Research on financial vulnerability has largely focused on the relationships between the economic environment, consumer financial activities and indebtedness, limiting our understanding of the role assumed by interpersonal relationships that underlie this socially embedded phenomenon. Using the common Brazilian practices of borrowing–lending amongst family and friends as the research context, we show that these practices can be viewed as a gift guided by the logic of a moral economy. Our findings show that individuals resort to the market economy to maintain a moral economy of credit which can be a blessing (when the extension of financial help to important others alleviates financial vulnerability by negotiating the marketplace) or a curse (when extension of financial help to others leads to one’s own financial constraints). This study illustrates an inverted gift giving process whereby the recipients’ own indulgence is presented as a monadic gift in accessing the dyadic gift giving relationship.