Doctoral Dissertation Research: Debt, Uncertainty, and Economic Governance

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Political conflict has been established to have adverse impact on debt repayment practices and assessments of financial risk. Economic governance practices are accordingly oriented to establishing a sense of normalcy in the face of fears about financial and commercial uncertainty. Restoration of this confidence is essential to creating the stable environments that serve American commercial interests. This project, which trains a graduate student in how to conduct rigorous, empirically-grounded scientific fieldwork, will explore the impact of political conflict, uncertainty, and risk on lending and debt repayment practices. This project asks how financial stability and investment can be realized following a period of prolonged political turmoil, where credit and debt relations suffered from a breakdown in trust and a fundamental uncertainty about the future.University of Michigan doctoral student Nishita Trisal, supervised by Dr. Matthew Hull, will explore the rise of financial risk and indebtedness in Indian-administered Kashmir. At a time marked in the region by increased economic activity and an ostensible decline in violence - what media and public discourse have dubbed a "return to normalcy" following more than two decades of conflict - this research will investigate the role of finance, banking, and economic development in the project of "normalizing" Kashmir. Through eighteen months of ethnographic fieldwork in Kashmir's capital Srinagar, specifically at the Jammu and Kashmir Bank, the District Debt Court, as well as at the homes and businesses of borrowers and defaulters, and in New Delhi, the research will track the life of financial transactions in Kashmir, from economic policy decisions to the litigation of bank default. It will do so by following the material artifacts that circulate within these sites, from loan applications and repayment notices to electronic banking systems. The research questions include: 1) How has the ongoing political conflict, and the uncertainties and risks it has produced, transformed Kashmiris' engagement with economic and legal practices? 2) What does studying sites of banking, finance, and default litigation - and the technologies that mediate them - reveal about how Kashmiris experience and conceptualize trust, risk, as well as the region's financial future and its sovereignty? 3) In what ways do the state, the judicial system, and the financial policy sector in Kashmir and in India invest in the political and economic "normalization" of Kashmir? The research will draw upon social science methods of participant observation, interviews, and linguistic analysis. It will enhance the public understanding of the global financial system, as experienced by borrowers, defaulters, loan officers, and financial policy experts. It will also produce a more robust understanding of financial risk through ethnographic analysis, thereby seeking to contribute to policy discussions aimed at ameliorating the vulnerability of politically and financially disenfranchised groups.