Financialisation and contested citizenship of ‘failed’ debtors: how overindebted people negotiate their status and rights

Centring in attention on overindebted people, the article examines 'practices of claim-making' from the perspective of 'failed citizens', insiders who lose their rights within constitutional democracies because they are perceived as failing to live up to its norms. We examined these practices in the context of the Czech debt collection system, which gives excessive power to lending institutions and bailiffs and severely limits debtors' social, labour and privacy rights. We show how the processes of financialisation, combined with an internalised discourse of individual responsibility are shaping the possibilities to translate the experience of exploitation into claims.