Mercy, Mercy Me - counterstories in applications for debt reconstruction

Abstract

Over-indebtedness has increased in Sweden and other European countries during the past 30 years. It involves great suffering for afflicted individuals and high costs for society, as well as inflicting personal stigma because of their inability to fulfill their moral obligation to pay debts. The aim of the study is to analyse personal letters attached to applications for debt reconstruction as examples of counterstories, paying special attention to the potential for these narratives to provide narrative repair for the applicants, as well as to formulate resistance to master narratives regarding over-indebtedness. The data for the study consists of personal letters accompanying applications for debt reconstruction. Qualitative analyses are made of the three different styles of argumentation that over-indebted persons use in applications for debt reconstruction, negotiation, reimbursement-claiming and confession, using the theoretical framework of counterstories. The results show that negotiation and reimbursement-claiming both have the potential for narrative repair and resistance to the master narrative, while confession does not.