Description
Book SynopsisSmitha Radhakrishnan explores India's microfinance industry, showing that despite the rhetoric about improving the everyday lives of women borrowers, the practice is a commercial industry that seeks to extract the maximum value from its customers.
Trade Review“Smitha Radhakrishnan's compelling and important study of women in the world of microfinance is one of the best books I've read in several years. No other book on the market features this kind of data, access, or methods of triangulation. With its clear writing, rich stories and nuance,
Making Women Pay will challenge readers to think more critically about how microfinance is deeply gendered. Engaging, moving, and powerful.” -- Kimberly Kay Hoang, author of * Dealing in Desire: Asian Ascendancy, Western Decline, and the Hidden Currencies of Global Sex Work *
“While the scholarship on microfinance has become increasingly nuanced over the past three decades, we still lack critical information about the very people who put microfinance into practice—namely, the loan officers, educators, and field-workers who directly interface with clients and act as brokers between clients and administration, as well as upper-level administrators. Smitha Radhakrishnan fills this critical gap, offering readers a new analysis of microfinance that takes seriously microfinance workers at all levels as social agents. Reading this book is a breath of fresh air and a true delight.” -- Erin Beck, author of * How Development Projects Persist: Everyday Negotiations with Guatemalan NGOs *
"...[T]he book is fascinating and does well to showcase how markets hurt women. Recommended. Undergraduates and faculty."
-- J. Bhattacharya * Choice *
"Smitha Radhakrishnan combines a novelist’s eye with a sharp, feminist analysis. By sympathetically bringing to life the people she encounters in her research in southern India and the USA, she illustrates the serious underlying issues. . .
Making Women Pay offers a disturbing but rewarding read." -- Deborah Eade * Gender & Development *
"Compelling. . . ." -- Kevin P. Donovan * Boston Review *
"Her scholarly analysis can serve as a textbook for graduate students and upper-level undergraduates, and her comprehensive bibliography offers multiple entry points to anyone interested in a deep exploration of microfinance practices." -- Nancy Nyland * Resources For Women And Gender Studies *
Table of ContentsAbbreviations and Acronyms ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction 1
1. The Invisible State of Gender and Credit 25
2. Men and Women of the MFI 47
3. Making Women Creditworthy 70
4. Social Work 100
5. Empowerment, Declined 124
6. Distortions of Distance 148
7. Impact Revisited 177
Conclusion 197
Methodological Appendix 211
Notes 219
Bibliography 233
Index 245
