Published by University of New Mexico Press
Microfinance began as the disbursement of tiny loans to the poor, which they could use to undertake informal income-generating activities. It went on to become one of the most popular international development policies of all time and a mainstay of local development and antipoverty programs across the Global South. The contributors to this multidisciplinary volume consider the origins, evolution, and outcomes of microfinance from a variety of perspectives and contend that it has been an unsuccessful approach to development. The contributors contend that over the last twenty years, microfinance policies have exacerbated poverty and exclusion, undermined gender empowerment, underpinned a massive growth in inequality, destroyed solidarity and trust in the community, and, overall, manifestly weakened those local economies of the Global South where it reached critical mass. They use qualitative anthropological, economic, and political-economic research to unpack the ideas and values that have allowed microfinance to “seduce” the world and blind so many to its corrosive effects.
Subjects: EconomicsAnthropology
ForewordJames K. GalbraithIntroduction. Setting the SceneMilford Bateman and Kate MacleanPart One. BackgroundChapter One. The Political Economy of MicrofinanceMilford BatemanChapter Two. Poverty Reduction or the Financialization of Poverty?Maren Duvendack and Philip MaderPart Two. SeductionChapter Three. Pop Development and the Uses of FeminismMeena Khandelwal and Carla FreemanChapter Four. Petit Bourgeois Fantasies: Microcredit, Small-Is-Beautiful Solutions, and Development’s New AntipoliticsElliott Prasse-FreemanChapter Five. Kiva’s Staging of “Peer-to-Peer” Charitable Lending: Innovative Marketing or Egregious Deception?Domen BajdeChapter Six. Muhammad Yunus’s Model of Social Business: A New, More Humane Form of Capitalism or a Failed “Next Big Idea”?Milford Bateman and Sonja NovkovićPart Three. BetrayalChapter Seven. Bosnia’s Postconflict Microfinance Experiment: A New Balkan TragedyMilford Bateman and Dean SinkovićChapter Eight. From Tigers to Cats? The Rise and Crisis of Microfinance in Rural IndiaMarcus TaylorChapter Nine. The Destructive Role of Microcredit in Post-apartheid South AfricaMilford Bateman and Khadija SharifeChapter Ten. Public Goods Provision Aided by Microfinance: Thanks to Groupthink and Ideological Blinkers, It’s a SuccessPhilip MaderChapter Eleven. The “Scandal” of Grameen: The Nobel Prize, the Bank, and the State in BangladeshLamia KarimChapter Twelve. Agricultural Microfinance and Risk SaturationCharlotte HealesPart Four. AlternativesChapter Thirteen. Banking on the Difference: Credit Unions as Superior Local Financial Institutions for the PoorJessica Gordon NembhardChapter Fourteen. Microfinance and the “Woman” QuestionKate MacleanChapter Fifteen. Moral and Other Economies: Nijera Kori and Its Alternatives to MicrocreditKasia PaprockiChapter Sixteen: The “Solidarity Economy” Model and Local Finance: Lessons from New Left Experiments in Latin America?Milford Bateman and Kate MacleanConclusion. It’s the Politics, StupidMilford Bateman and Kate MacleanReferencesContributorsIndex
