Cultural-affective process of market violence: Finnish instant loans in debtors’ online narratives

Abstract

This paper extends recent theorising on “market violence”, defined here as a type of structural and cultural violence that takes place through an assemblage in the market environment. The Finnish “instant loan” market (similar to payday loans) has been widely criticised, e.g. for excessively high interest rates; in this paper, debtors’ anonymous narratives on the discussion forum Suomi24 are used to analyse the instant loan market as a case of market violence. The study contributes to a deeper understanding of the role of culture and affect in market violence and presents a model of cultural market violence showing how affects (here: hope, shame, despair and sense of urgency) can play a key role in mediating between cultural ideals (here: those of individual responsibility and the “good life”) and concrete business practices, thus enabling market violence.