Who is to blame for America’s housing mess? This is a question that has provoked endless debate in the US, not to mention the rest of the world, during the past three years. And as the economic pain has piled up – around 5m American homes are in foreclosure or at risk of it – there has been no shortage of culprits to blame, including politicians, regulators, bankers, mortgage brokers, economists and credit rating agencies. Indeed, if you want to feel really angry in 2011, you could do worse than read a great new book by two US business journalists, Bethany McLean and Joe Nocera, called All the Devils are Here. As its somewhat unsubtle title suggests, the book holds up many a “sinner” for our consideration, ranging from Lloyd Blankfein to [disgraced former Countrywide CEO] Angelo Mozilo, and many in between.
Amid all this finger-pointing, it is also worth taking a glance at some fascinating research currently being conducted by anthropologists in America’s rust belt. At first glance, this might seem a rather strange place for anthropologists to work – during most of the 20th century, most adherents to this discipline generally headed to exotic, glamorous climes. (In my case, I once did fieldwork in the Hindu Kush.) But these days, anthropologists are increasingly trying to study the rituals of the western world, even in prosaic places such as Michigan. And so, a couple of years ago, Anne Jefferson of the University of Michigan began a research project that analyses how mortgage foreclosures are unfolding.
Her findings are fascinating. When she arrived in her “fieldsite” three years ago, as the housing crisis got underway, one of the first things that struck her was the prevalence of suicide tales. More specifically, when she spoke to citizens groups involved in the housing market, they were buzzing with tales of homeowners who were killing themselves just before being evicted from their homes, seemingly as an act of revenge and despair.