Seduced and betrayed: exposing the contemporary microfinance phenomenon
Bateman, M. and Maclean, Kate, eds. (2017) Seduced and betrayed: exposing the contemporary microfinance phenomenon. School for Advanced Research. Santa Fe, US: University of New Mexico Press.
Abstract
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.
Metadata
Item Type: | Book |
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School: | Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Social Sciences |
Research Centres and Institutes: | Gender and Sexuality, Birkbeck (BiGS) |
Depositing User: | Kate Maclean |
Date Deposited: | 09 Jan 2019 12:06 |
Last Modified: | 02 Aug 2023 17:33 |
URI: | https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/19063 |
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