The politics of creditor–debtor relations and mortgage payment strikes: The case of the Uruguayan Federation of Mutual-Aid Housing Cooperatives

Mortgage debt and concomitant forms of financial expropriation continue their largely uncontested expansion across the social terrain. The atomisation of debtors and commodity fetishism are two key factors that underpin this process. The collective and partially de-commodified character of mutual-aid housing cooperatives in Uruguay and their conflict-ridden mortgage debt relations provide a contrasting, reverse mirror image. This paper analyses how in the case of a collective debtor, the spatial fixity and temporal uncertainties that result from the establishment of mortgage debt relations can work against the creditor. Housing cooperatives make up a geography of spaces that are opaque to the creditor, in the sense that mortgage debtors cannot be individually identified and pursued. Once homes are constructed and inhabited, the creditor’s debt claims can be collectively challenged. In the context of the most recent mortgage payment strike (2001–2011) carried out by the Uruguayan Federation of Mutual-Aid Housing Cooperatives, what is presumed a voluntary contract between equal parties is revealed as a power struggle between owners and non-owners of capital. This atypical case provides an opportunity to empirically attest to the political nature of creditor–debtor relations, often rendered socially invisible due to the extreme power imbalance between counterparties.