“A debt of money can be liquidated but a debt of gratitude is never completely settled” – so goes the epigraph to Toe Hla’s 1987 PhD dissertation on money lending during the Kon-baung period, a fascinating study of social relations of the time rendered through examination of exchange. We also feature more recent studies of debt that may have flown under the radar, with Carstens and Watanabe, respectively, exploring how kyay-zu (rendered as ‘debt’) likewise sometimes may never be discharged, while Campbell shows how debt works to link squatters – seemingly ‘outside’ of capitalism – to markets as de facto wage workers.

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