Politicized Microfinance: Money, Power, and Violence in the Black Americas

by Caroline Shenaz Hossein

Overview

When Grameen Bank was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006, microfinance was lauded as an important contributor to the economic development of the Global South. However, political scandals, mission-drift, and excessive commercialization have tarnished this example of responsible or inclusive financial development. Politicized Microfinance insightfully discusses exclusion while providing a path towards redemption.

In this work, Caroline Shenaz Hossein explores the politics, histories and social prejudices that have shaped the legacy of microbanking in Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica and Trinidad. Writing from a feminist perspective, Hossein’s analysis is rooted in original qualitative data and offers multiple solutions that prioritize the needs of marginalized and historically oppressed people of African descent.

A must read for scholars of political economy, diaspora studies, social economy, women’s studies, as well as development practitioners, Politicized Microfinance convincingly deftly argues for microfinance to return to its origins as a political tool, fighting for those living in the margins.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781442616240
Publisher:	University of Toronto Press
Publication date:	06/23/2016
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	6.06(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.55(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Caroline Shenaz Hossein is an associate professor of Global Development and Political Economy at the University of Toronto Scarborough; Canada Research Chair, Tier 2 of Africana Development and Feminist Political Economy; and Founder of the Diverse Solidarity Economies (DISE) Collective.

Table of Contents

List of Figures and Tables

Preface

Acknowledgments

Nomenclature

Abbreviations

Chapter 1: Microfinance and Black People

Chapter 2: Contextualizing Microfinance in Jamaica, Guyana, and Haiti

Chapter 3: Cultural Politics, Bias, and Microfinance

Chapter 4: Violence against Borrowers and Lenders in Microfinance

Chapter 5: Alternative Banking among the African Diaspora

Chapter 6: Banking on Indigenous Systems

Appendix: Description of Slums in the Study

Notes

Bibliography

Index

What People are Saying About This

Perry Mars

“Politicized Microfinance is a very interesting and pioneering study of a typically under-researched and underdeveloped issue in the Caribbean experience. Caroline Shenaz Hossein utilizes the appropriate combination of quantitative data and insightful qualitative interpretations and analysis.”

Bipasha Baruah

“No one else has studied the opportunities and constraints in access to microcredit based on the intersectional identities of race, ethnicity, and gender. Caroline Shenaz Hossein's original and important findings are a major contribution to research on microcredit.”

Jessica Gordon Nembhard

“Caroline Shenaz Hossein provides an innovative analysis that explores the importance of partisan, identity, and sexual politics in micro-lending. Politicized Microfinance is exciting, multilayered and long overdue scholarship that deepens our understanding of micro-financing and the micro-enterprise industry, particularly along race, gender, class and cultural dimensions.”

Editorial Reviews

‘ Politicized Microfinance is a timely and empirically rich book. It will be of interest to readers interested in microfinance and alternative finance and in social economy and alternative economies more broadly.’

—Nick Bernards, Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography September 2016

‘This work is a valuable contribution toward painting a more realistic picture of how bias affects lending.’

—B. B. Andrew, Choice Magazine vol 54:06:2017

" Politicized Microfinance’s key attraction is that it is informed by Black feminist thought and intersectional feminism and thus makes a much-needed intervention… Hossein’s call for an intersectional lens in the social economy may be one of the final ingredients which we need to attain social transformations."

—Grace Adeniyi Ogunyankin, International Society for Third-Sector Research Vol 29: 2018

"No one else has studied the opportunities and constraints in access to microcredit based on the intersectional identities of race, ethnicity, and gender. Caroline Shenaz Hossein’s original and important findings are a major contribution to research on microcredit."

—Bipasha Baruah, Canada Research Chair in Global Women’s Issues, Western University

" Politicized Microfinance is a very interesting and pioneering study of a typically under-researched and underdeveloped issue in the Caribbean experience. Caroline Shenaz Hossein utilizes the appropriate combination of quantitative data and insightful qualitative interpretations and analysis."

—Perry Mars, Professor Emeritus, African American Studies, Wayne State University

"Caroline Shenaz Hossein provides an innovative analysis that explores the importance of partisan, identity, and sexual politics in micro-lending . Politicized Microfinance is exciting, multilayered and long overdue scholarship that deepens our understanding of micro-financing and the micro-enterprise industry, particularly along race, gender, class and cultural dimensions."

—Jessica Gordon Nembhard, Professor, Department of Africana Studies, John Jay College CUNY

From the Publisher

"Politicized Microfinance's key attraction is that it is informed by Black feminist thought and intersectional feminism and thus makes a much-needed intervention... Hossein's call for an intersectional lens in the social economy may be one of the final ingredients which we need to attain social transformations."

International Society for Third-Sector Research Vol 29: 2018 - Grace Adeniyi Ogunyankin

'Politicized Microfinance is a timely and empirically rich book. It will be of interest to readers interested in microfinance and alternative finance and in social economy and alternative economies more broadly.'

Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography September 2016 - Nick Bernards

'This work is a valuable contribution toward painting a more realistic picture of how bias affects lending.'

Choice Magazine vol 54:06:2017 - B. B. Andrew