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Of loans and livelihoods: Gendered “social work” in urban India
Author(s) -
Radhakrishnan Smitha
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
economic anthropology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2330-4847
DOI - 10.1002/sea2.12120
Subject(s) - microfinance , financialization , livelihood , work (physics) , cultural capital , sustainability , social capital , ethnography , financial capital , economic growth , power (physics) , business , sociology , finance , economics , human capital , social science , geography , mechanical engineering , ecology , physics , archaeology , quantum mechanics , anthropology , engineering , biology , agriculture
Through an ethnographic study of commercial microlending in urban India, this article examines how “everyday” financialization reinscribes class and gender hierarchies in working‐class communities at global finance's outer edges. Relatively privileged women deploy their knowledge of their communities to organize women, sometimes coercively, into precise formations that meet the exacting requirements of corporate microfinance institutions (MFIs). Through “social work,” powerful volunteers can convert intimate financial knowledge of households in their neighborhoods into social and cultural power. Concomitantly, MFIs aiming to funnel global capital into marginal neighborhoods achieve financial sustainability.