Seduced and Betrayed: Exposing the Contemporary Microfinance Phenomenon

by Milford Bateman (Editor), Kate Maclean (Editor), James K. Galbraith (Foreword by)

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780826357960
Publisher:	University of New Mexico Press
Publication date:	05/01/2017
Series:	School for Advanced Research Advanced Seminar Series
Pages:	376
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Milford Bateman is a visiting professor of economics in the Faculty of Economics and Tourism at Juraj Dobrila University of Pula, Croatia, and an adjunct professor in International Development Studies at Saint Mary's University in Halifax, Canada.


Kate Maclean is a senior lecturer in the Department of Geography, Environment and Development Studies at Birkbeck, University of London.

Table of Contents

Foreword James K. Galbraith vii

Introduction Setting the Scene Milford Bateman Kate Maclean 1

Part 1 Background

Chapter 1 The Political Economy of Microfinance Milford Bateman 17

Chapter 2 Poverty Reduction or the Financialization of Poverty? Maren Duvendack Philip Mader 33

Part 2 Seduction

Chapter 3 Pop Development and the Uses of Feminism Meena Khandelwal Carla Freeman 49

Chapter 4 Petit Bourgeois Fantasies: Microcredit, Small-Is-Beautiful Solutions, and Development's New Antipolitics Elliott Prasse-Freeman 69

Chapter 5 Kiva's Staging of "Peer-to-Peer" Charitable Lending: Innovative Marketing or Egregious Deception? Domen Bajde 87

Chapter 6 Muhammad Yunus's Model of Social Business: A New, More Humane Form of Capitalism or a Failed "Next Big Idea"? Milford Bateman Sonja Novkovic 103

Part 3 Betrayal

Chapter 7 Bosnia's Postconflict Microfinance Experiment: A New Balkan Tragedy Milford Bateman Dean Sinkovic 127

Chapter 8 From Tigers to Cats? The Rise and Crisis of Microfinance in Rural India Marcus Taylor 147

Chapter 9 The Destructive Role of Microcredit in Post-apartheid South Africa Milford Bateman Khadija Sharife 161

Chapter 10 Public Goods Provision Aided by Microfinance: Groupthink, Ideological Blinkers, and Stories of Success Philip Mader 183

Chapter 11 The "Scandal" of Grameen: The Nobel Prize, the Bank, and the State in Bangladesh Lamia Karim 203

Chapter 12 Agricultural Microfinance and Risk Saturation Charlotte Heales 219

Part 4 Alternatives

Chapter 13 Banking on the Difference: Credit Unions as Superior Local Financial Institutions for the Poor Jessica Gordon Nembhard 237

Chapter 14 Microfinance and the "Woman" Question Kate Maclean 251

Chapter 15 Moral and Other Economies: Nijera Kori and Its Alternatives to Microcredit Kasia Paprocki 265

Chapter 16 The "Solidarity Economy" Model and Local Finance: Lessons from New Left Experiments in Latin America? Milford Bateman Kate Maclean 279

Conclusion: It's the Politics, Stupid Milford Bateman Kate Maclean 297

References 303

Contributors 357

Index 359

Editorial Reviews

"Seduced and Betrayed exhibits the brilliance of thought that heterodox economic analysis can bring to bear on important issues. The book is built on an analytical framework that encompasses the roles of context and unequal power, illuminating the sociological and psychological forces at play. For this reason alone, this book is a must-read for economists and policymakers. Its importance also lies in its success at challenging the seductive notion that microfinance promotes women's empowerment and in identifying the link between microfinance and the broader global problem of financialization of our economies."—Stephanie Seguino, coeditor of Critical and Feminist Perspectives on Financial and Economic Crises

From the Publisher