The Spazialization of Debt
摘要
Debt is not just a financial instrument—it is an infrastructure of control that permeates space, shaping cities, homes, and the very conditions of life. These reflections expose how debt functions as a mechanism of dispossession, entrenching economic subjugation while masquerading as opportunity. From mortgage markets to microfinance schemes, financial systems systematically extract value from the labor, aspirations, and vulnerabilities of the indebted. Women, in particular, bear the brunt of this financial colonization, their unpaid and underpaid labor turned into collateral for survival. The concept of “debtscapes” captures how urban space itself is produced through cycles of financial speculation and coercion, where homes are not shelters but sites of extraction. Against this backdrop, the chapter calls for a radical rethinking of architecture and urban planning—not as neutral disciplines, but as terrains of struggle where spatial justice must be reclaimed from the grip of financialized capitalism.