Description:

Please join the American Politics Workshop as they host Dr. Patricia Posey, the Provost's Postdoctoral Fellow in the Political Science and a faculty affiliate of the Race and Capitalism Project at the University of Chicago. 

Abstract: The United States has two disparate economies: one for the poor and credit-poor that is used disproportionately by racial minorities, and another for (predominantly white) well-resourced individuals and households. I contribute to the increasing conversations about American inequality by highlighting one of its primary causes: extractive markets. This talk explores the links between exposure to financial services such as pawnshops, check-cashing outlets, and payday loans (collectively known as the fringe economy) and democratic inclusion. Lenders and financial actors offer necessary services, often on exploitative terms, that limit or eliminate their long-term benefits for racial minorities, the poor, and the credit-poor. I leverage the locations of mainstream and alternative financial services to highlight how the local availability of financial services is racialized in distinct ways from the class composition of neighborhoods. I show individuals in fringe economy neighborhoods develop service-specific beliefs about the predatory nature of the services and government responsiveness, which inform broader political orientations. These findings show the disparate economic vulnerabilities of racial minorities; and how racialized political economy reinforces an individuals' status in the sociopolitical hierarchy. Together, they point to the centrality of access to financial services in the study of race and political economy.  

Dr. Patricia Posey is Provost's Postdoctoral Fellow in the Political Science and a faculty affiliate of the Race and Capitalism Project at the University of Chicago, where she specializes in race and American political economy. Her current manuscript considers the political participation of marginalized groups and the necessity to ensure the representation of their interests. She looks to fill the gap in the ways financial services such as pawnshops, check-cashing outlets, auto title loans, and payday loans (collectively known as the fringe economy) exacerbate the relationship among race, political participation, and political economy. Addressing the political behaviors of those touched by the fringe economy is necessary because these individuals compromise an often neglected voice in society: the overwhelmingly poor, disproportionately minority. Her work draws on novel geographic data, survey data, and interview data from Chicago, IL and Philadelphia, PA.