Viral Debt
The Production and Reproduction of Economic Vulnerability
Frederick F Wherry editor Jodi Gardner editor Mia Gray editor
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Taylor & Francis Ltd
Publishing:31st Mar '26
£39.99
This title is due to be published on 31st March, and will be despatched as soon as possible.
Challenging how social scientists, policymakers, legal scholars, and the public examine household debts and wellbeing, Viral Debt traces how debt moves within and across households to communities and institutions, with devastating effects.
Debt is not merely a contractual condition, it is also an inherently unequal relationship between creditor and debtor that can exploit pre-existing vulnerabilities while creating new ones. With a roster of leading social science and socio-legal scholars, this book shows how debt – like a contagion – works systematically across economic and social structures and geographies, demonstrating the ways in which policy has exacerbated the problem of debt through policy choices.
This volume offers urgent answers by drawing on quantitative data about household indebtedness, credit and debt policies, and local court actions, together with qualitative research.
“Debt does not accumulate by accident; it ramps up by design, settling unevenly across the social landscape, blighting the lives and futures of all but a wealthy elite. Debt has gone viral; finally, a single book explains how, when, where, and why that happened.”
Susan Smith, President of the British Academy
“Situating debt within a conceptual framework of ‘virus’ and ‘contagion’, this book offers a new approach to the study of debt in today’s society. In the wake of the global pandemic, this timely and important work deserves to be read and discussed widely.”
Nicholas Gane, Professor of Sociology, University of Warwick
“This volume offers a novel framing of viral debt and how treating debt as a virus helps us understand ‘bad debts.’ They bring patently to light how indebtedness transcends individual choices and faults. This is an important book for the time we are in!”
Nina Bandelj, Chancellor's Professor of Sociology, University of California, Irvine
ISBN: 9781032758831
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: 453g
288 pages