Wits University Press and WiSER invite you to the launch of a new book
MONEY FROM NOTHING
Indebtedness and Aspiration in South Africa
by Deborah James
Deborah James explores in this book how ordinary people experienced South Africa’s version of the credit crunch. While South Africa’s national project of financial inclusion aims to extend credit to black South Africans as a critical aspect of abolishing apartheid’s legacy, it also creates potentially precarious and impoverishing forms of indebtedness. Is credit extension the best way to promote financial inclusion in the national economy?
If lenders operate by the logic of the free market, why is state regulation required to restrain them from offering products that will lead borrowers into debt, thus ultimately killing the goose that laid the golden egg?
These and other questions will be discussed by Deborah James; Gabriel Davel, former CEO of the National Credit Regulator now working as an international consultant on financial regulation and development finance for governments and private companies; Khadija Patel, independent writer and research fellow at WiSER and Catherine Burns (WiSER).
Deborah James is at the London School of Economics where she has been doing anthropological research on credit and indebtedness in South Africa over the past 5 years. Her previous books include Gaining Ground? ‘Rights’ and ‘Property’ in South African Land Reform and Songs of the Women Migrants, both published by Wits University Press.
WHEN: Wednesday, 15 April 2015 at 17h30 for 18h00
WHERE: Wits Institute for Social & Economic Research (WiSER)
6th floor, Richard Ward Building, Wits University, East Campus, Braamfontein
The Richard Ward Building is immediately adjacent to Senate House. Parking at Origins Centre.
RSVP: by 14 April to [email protected]
Info about the book: https://archivewitspress.co.za/catalogue/money-from-nothing/
ISBN – 978 1 86814 689 5