What's Lost in the Fringe: Understanding the Economic and Social Processes of an Urban Pawnshop

• In Event: 504 - Section on Economic Sociology Paper Session. Credit, Poverty and Inequality

Abstract

Recent work in the area of economic sociology has focused on how neoliberal policy reforms and financialization have exacerbated economic inequality, disadvantaging working and middle classes in particular. Yet, in focusing on macro-processes, elite actors, and numerical outcomes, we have too often overlooked how those disadvantaged cope, financially, with their marginalized economic position. One such strategy is to utilize the “fringe” economy, governed by a different set of financial regulations than the mainstream banking sector. Drawing largely from ten months of ethnographic research in a Chicago-area pawnshop, this paper seeks to better understand both the role of the pawnshop in our current economic landscape, as well as the distinct set of social processes and relations governing the pawnshop, to better understand what happens to those pushed to the economic margins of a financialized economy. The research has three key findings. First, that the “ideal” financial actor in the pawnshop is not bound by the same metrics or behavioral norms used in the mainstream banking sector, thereby opening up new possibilities of financial assessment. Second, that pawn-based credit has its own, distinct social meaning stemming from the personal value of objects. This personal value, in turn, ultimately informs fiscal behavior. Finally, despite opening services to a broader swath of Americans, customers are ultimately re-marginalized by the neoliberal logic of the mainstream economy, as well as cultural ideas about pawnshop use, reinforcing the “fringe” status of the pawnshop.

Author

• Anya Degenshein, Northwestern University