Abstract
After the financial crisis, concerns about consumer financial protection and financial security in the United States (US) resulted in a renewed interest in promoting financial education. Targeting primarily low and moderate-income (LMI) participants, financial literacy and capability programs have been supported by national nonprofit organizations, as well as by city, state and federal agencies. While these programs have grown exponentially and now appear in major cities across the US, little is known about their everyday implementation. This article focuses on financial literacy and capability programs in the greater metropolitan area of Boston, Massachusetts to offer a close read of these under-examined nonprofit spaces of financial empowerment and inclusion in the US context.Based on over 180 hours of participant observation and 45 semi-structured interviews during 14 months of in-depth qualitative research, this article identifies and analyzes a recent change in financial education from group-based workshops to a model of one-on-one financial coaching. In documenting the “coaching turn”, this article offers a novel focus on the nonprofit spaces of financial inclusion and empowerment. As part of this, I examine how these programs shape personal financial habits and expand access to financial products and services for their LMI clients. By focusing on the spaces where the financial practices of populations at the margins of the financial economy are actively being shaped, this research reveals how the active growth of the financial sector is contingent upon making previously unfit market actors into viable debtors in the pedagogical spaces of financial inclusion. This research therefore shows how financial literacy and capability programs are expanding the reach of finance, especially into the lives of LMI populations. As such, this article offers insights into the evolving geographies of financial inclusion and exclusion and is an important complement to literature in geography on the social and scalar relations of financialization.
Published Version
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
