Mattering, Resistance, and Trust Among Women in Financially Engineered Markets

Background & Purpose: Engaging with housing markets requires placing one’s trust in opaque algorithms and financial institutions. For many, particularly women who were targeted by predatory lending, the Great Recession fractured their trust in the institutions governing market economies.  Further, these same systems are underpinned by an increase in financialized housing systems infused with personal and systemic market risk. That is, the consequences of generating capital through financial engineering extend into previously non-monetized spaces thereby injecting market instability and stress into the home and lived experience of social reproduction (Fields, 2016).  Despite the assumption of symmetrical market information and static rational action written into policy, the aforementioned risks associated with financialization are unevenly distributed and more likely to extract wealth from women and people of color.  

In this paper I argue that while the precarity associated with financialization initiates a loss of trust that threatens financial capability and asset building, it also creates space to resist the intrusion of financial engineering into the everyday lives of women. Given that social workers engaging with FCAB are structurally positioned in between risky, segmented markets, the state, and vulnerable populations I also argue that (1) focused attention ought to be paid to the intersection of trust, the social work code of ethics, and risk when creating market interventions, and (2) that as a field anchored in ethics social welfare scholars working within FCAB are ideally situated to mediate these tensions.

Methods: The study relies on data from semi-structured interviews conducted with 21 female homeowners who experienced mortgage default in the Recession.  Interviews lasted between 1-4 hours, were digitally recorded, and professionally transcribed. Data analysis followed a grounded theory approach which included, (1) line-by-line coding, (2) focused open coding, and (3) axial coding using Dedoose (Charmaz, 2014). 

Results & Implications: Women interpreted their mortgage trouble as a rejection from mainstream financial institutions and a failure of their capacity to fulfill gendered expectations. While many of their initial reactions reflected active and passive suicide ideation and/or the expected themes of internalized shame found elsewhere in the literature, some women also resisted internalizing these messages by rejecting the notion that they did not matter. The embodiment of mattering, that is the belief that one is interpersonally relevant to others and existentially relevant to society (Elliott, Kao, & Grant, 2004), served as an act of resistance against the encroachment of financialization into their personal lives and sense of self. In particular, when the housing system “expelled” them as financial actors (Sassen, 2012, p.75), embracing an alternative identity grounded in a sense of agency provided them with a site of resistance to re-engage with social and financial institutions on different terms. These results carry distinct practice implications for social workers and social welfare scholars aiming to bolster the capacity of those at-risk of asset depletion or poverty, which requires establishing or repairing a client’s relationship and trust in markets governed by risk and wealth extraction.