Discourses of microcredit: Making philanthropy profitable

Type Thesis

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Summary

Having its origins in Bangladesh, microcredit has since diffused across South Asia, using this region as a fertile testing ground. As a result of its supposed success in the region, this strategy for alleviating poverty has been legitimated as a development intervention and has since been transposed to impoverished areas in the wealthy nations of Europe and North America. This importation attests to the shifting tides of global capital, demonstrating that poverty exists simultaneously across the globe, lurking in the ‘third world’ and in the shadows of the world's wealthiest nations. Throughout this thesis I argue that the discourses of microcredit, and of development more generally, function to divert the attention of concerned citizens away from the problems of poverty that exist in wealthy nations and toward those experienced by the seemingly distant and exotic ‘other.’ It is my contention that by successfully separating ‘us’ from ‘them,’ the discourses surrounding microcredit appeal to modernization theory and thereby mask the true effects of the global expansion of capital. However, because of these misleading discourses, the fundamental linkage between poverty and the continuing growth of global capital is rendered invisible. Consequently, the profitability of microcredit interventions is overlooked and the philanthropic rhetoric characteristic of dominant development discourse functions as a clever disguise.