Doctoral Dissertation Research: Public Debt and Popular Response

自2008年全球经济低迷以来，债务和信贷已成为全球公众关注的核心问题。该奖项支持的研究试图通过观察这些发展在地方一级的影响来理解其中的原因。这位研究人员问：公共债务是如何与当地生活密切相关的？这些担忧是否会影响地方一级的个人和家庭债务和责任体验？这些担忧如何转化为债务政治和公众反应？回答这些问题将有助于政策制定者和社会科学家更好地了解国家和全球经济危机的局部影响以及当地应对措施的补救潜力。纽约城市大学(CUNY)人类学博士生萨拉·莫利纳里(Sarah Molinari)在伊达·苏瑟博士的建议下，将通过在波多黎各圣胡安的研究来回答这些问题。波多黎各目前的债务危机在社会各阶层引发了辩论和反应，使其成为一个特别合适的研究地点。莫利纳里将把重点放在圣胡安的三个公民社会团体上。这三家公司都与债务危机有关，但他们的构成因年龄、社会经济地位、政治和对债务的看法而不同。她将通过扩展的案例方法、访谈、参与者观察、文献分析和档案研究来收集数据。调查结果将有助于理解“债务”和债务人/债权人关系的概念的多样性；人们如何经历不同规模的债务和信贷关系；以及对最近事件的理解和反应的差异。研究结果将由纽约州立大学研究生院拉丁美洲、加勒比和拉丁裔研究中心以及在波多黎各大学凯伊分校跨学科研究所的公开研讨会上传播。

Since the 2008 global economic downturn, debt and credit have emerged globally as central issues of public concern. The research supported by this award seeks to understand why, by looking at the effects of these developments at the local level. The researcher asks: How does public debt become materially connected to local lives? Do these concerns affect local-level experiences of personal and household debt and responsibility? How do these concerns translate into debt politics and public response? Answering these questions will help both policy makers and social scientists to better understand the local effects of national and global economic crisis and the remediating potential of local response. City University of New York (CUNY) anthropology doctoral student, Sarah Molinari, advised by Dr. Ida Susser, will undertake to answer these questions through research in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico's current debt crisis has spurred debate and response at all levels of society, making this a particularly appropriate research site. Molinari will focus on three San Juan-based civil society groups. All three are concerned with the debt crisis but differ in their make-up by age, socio-economic position, politics and ideas about debt. She will gather data through the extended case method, interviews, participant observation, documentary analysis, and archival research. Findings will contribute to understanding diversity in conceptions of "debt" and debtor/creditor relations; how people experience different scales of debt and credit relations; and variations in understanding of and responding to recent events. Research findings will be disseminated by the Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies at the CUNY Graduate Center and during a public seminar at the Institute of Interdisciplinary Research at the University of Puerto Rico, Cayey.