The financeiras and the new nexuses between the circuits of the urban economy: credit techniques and indebtedness of the low-income population in Brazil

• Grant number: 20/06723-8
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Start date: November 01, 2020
• End date: October 31, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Geography - Human Geography
• Principal Investigator: Fabio Betioli Contel
• Grantee: Juliana Santos de Oliveira
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 22/15180-3 - The role of financial credit institutions in the division of financial labor in Spain: consumer credit and household indebtedness in the current context, BE.EP.DR

Abstract

We propose to investigate the logic and the role of Credit, Financing and Investment Societies (SCFI's) - the so-called "financeiras" - in the process of credit diffusion in the Brazilian territory, as well as their penetration into the everyday lives of the low-income in the 21st century. The study will also be based on the concepts of technosphere and psychosphere, which are at the basis of this diffusion, and tend to feedback the mechanisms of indebtedness (based on the consumption that the psychosphere requires and induces), by consolidating a new topology and offering diversified financial products (especially for low-income social strata). Our hypothesis, therefore, is that the "financeiras" play a fundamental role in making available credit to the poor population, and its spread, in the dialectic of the expansion of modern consumption, contributes to the deepening of forms of indebtedness in the lower circuit of the urban economy. The spatial scope of the research will have two main scales of analysis: 1. the scale of the Brazilian territory, which will allow considering the topology of the financial companies - from their headquarters, through the branches/points of sale to the use of applications on smartphones - and their relative position in the division of labor in the financial system; and 2. the local scale, when investigating the role of these institutions in providing credit to low-income individuals and households, as well as to economic agents in the lower circuit of the urban economy. On this local scale, we will highlight the analysis of the cities of São Paulo and Porto Alegre, capitals that our previous documentary research identified as those that have a greater number of "financeiras" (SCFI's) in action. (AU)