When credit cards become business capital: Decoding financialization in Indonesia

This article presents an anthropological study on credit card use in Indonesia. It focuses on cultural and social knots that mutually influence financial knowledge and experience using the concepts of performativity and temporality in relation to the rapid process of financialization. By focusing on the credit card community in Indonesia, this article explains how they strategize their financial algorithms in the credit card management cycle. This article contributes to anthropological research on the unequal impact of credit card use by exploring the complex relationship between access to financial and ethical justice, variations in cultural contexts, and social hierarchies. The research examines how financial temporality is created through material and institutional practices. The findings presented in this article underscore the importance of considering credit card activities within a broader framework of financialization and complex social dynamics in contemporary Indonesia and other similar contexts. This study contributes to theoretical discussions on the social and cultural elements of financialization by providing an in-depth and specific narrative analysis of credit and debt.