Balancing Act: An Ethnographic Exploration of Household Debt Burden for Roma Women in the Czech Republic

My paper discusses gendered management of racialised household debts, drawing on an ethnographic research among Roma families in Ostrava, a city in the Czech Republic. This work is situated in a broader inquiry within which I look at the operation of racial capitalism, and the ongoing crisis of social reproduction in the post-socialist context. I will invite the participants to engage with data on labour involved in the household cash flow, as well as social and emotional pressures of the debt management when it is rendered a responsibility of female household members. Drawing on a comparative analysis from other geographical contexts—mostly US and UK—I will trace the structural roots of gendered household finances, which turned women from ethnic minorities into a category of interest for predatory lending institutions (Allon, 2015). Empirical data from my research indicate that along the existing gendered divisions and inequalities, the consequences of targeting female household members by creditors and predatory debt enforcement agents traps Roma women in a life in debt, and subsequently precarious and underpaid forms of employment. Attentive to the neoliberal changes in the state policies during the post-socialist period, I frame the discussion by the analysis of the shift in the responsibility for the social reproduction from the state welfare institution to households and non-state actors. I then examine gendered consequences of the increased debt management burden. The paper will bring empirical examples from everyday experiences of Roma women and highlight the constant balancing act between childcare, household chores, debt management and waged labour.