Microfinance and Its Discontents

Women in Debt in Bangladesh

By: Lamia Karim

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Paperback | 7 March 2011

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292 Pages

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21.5 x 13.9 x 2.2

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A feminist critique of the much-lauded microcredit process in Bangladesh

In 2006 the Grameen Bank of Bangladesh won the Nobel Peace Prize for its innovative microfinancing operations. This path-breaking study of gender, grassroots globalization, and neoliberalism in Bangladesh looks critically at the Grameen Bank and three of the leading NGOs in the country. Amid euphoria over the benefits of microfinance, Lamia Karim offers a timely and sobering perspective on the practical, and possibly detrimental, realities for poor women inducted into microfinance operations.
In a series of ethnographic cases, Karim shows how NGOs use social codes of honor and shame to shape the conduct of women and to further an agenda of capitalist expansion. These unwritten policies subordinate poor women to multiple levels of debt that often lead to increased violence at the household and community levels, thereby weakening women's ability to resist the onslaught of market forces.
A compelling critique of the relationship between powerful NGOs and the financially strapped women beholden to them for capital, this book cautions us to be vigilant about the social realities within which women and loans circulate-realities that often have adverse effects on the lives of the very women these operations are meant to help.

Industry Reviews

"It is precisely because the microcredit mantra has been so endlessly repeated, often in place of actual empirical documentation to back its claims, that Microfinance and Its Discontents is so compelling. This is an outstanding, courageous, and path-breaking piece of scholarship; one that will doubtless unsettle the microcredit establishment, and by extension, key presumptions of neoliberal research agendas." --Kamala Visweswaran, University of Texas, Austin

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Preface	p. vii
Abbreviations	p. xi
Introduction: Neoliberalism, Microfinance, and Women's Empowerment	p. xiii
The Structural Transformation of the NGO Sphere	p. 1
The Research Terrain	p. 35
The Everyday Mediations of Microfinance	p. 65
The Social Life of Debt	p. 95
NGOs, Clergy, and Contested ôDemocracyö	p. 133
Power/Knowledge in Microfinance	p. 163
Conclusion: From Disciplined Subjects to Political Agents?	p. 191
Glossary of Bengali Words	p. 207
Notes	p. 211
Index	p. 243
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

Microfinance and Its Discontents

Women in Debt in Bangladesh

At a Glance

Paperback

Industry Reviews

Shipping

How to return your order

Defective items

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