Debt and Financial Inclusion in Times of Austerity: A Feminist Reading from Argentina

This commentary first highlights methodological and theoretical findings of research developed as a feminist reading of debt, which systematizes the links between household debt and violence, work, social reproduction, and dispossession in Argentina. Secondly, the commentary delves deeper into the characterization of “financial inclusion” policies implemented in Argentina during the pandemic and continued in the following two years, problematizing their premises and limits. It further explores how the information that emerges from these policies is used (or not), both to investigate gender-based violence and to criminalize financial practices of the poorest sectors. As a final element, the piece reflects, from a feminist financial pedagogy perspective, on the tension between the grammar of financial inclusion and that of debt relief. They differ both in conceptualization and in political and public policy practices, with respect to the advancement of debt aimed especially at women and the LGBTIQ population in precarious situations.