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Economic Entitlements via Entrepreneurial Conduct? Women and Financial Inclusion in Neo-liberal India

Journal of World-Systems Research

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Title Economic Entitlements via Entrepreneurial Conduct? Women and Financial Inclusion in Neo-liberal India
 
Creator Kalpana, K.
 
Subject Microfinance; Women; Neoliberal Govemmentality; Capitalist Accumulation; India
 
Description This paper examines the gendered local character of neoliberalism at the household level by focusing on microcredit/finance programs in India. Microfinance promoted by the state as an informal activity targeting women is intended to alleviate income inequalities, even as it contributes to maintaining the world capitalist system. In India the inception of microfinance-based Self Help Groups (SHGs) or peer groups of women savers and borrowers in the 1990s has coincided with a rightward turn towards neoliberal policies of structural adjustment, privatization and economic deregulation. In this paper, I show how Indian policy makers have endeavored to make women's economic entitlements contingent upon their disciplined financial behavior and their willing participation in neoliberal agendas of creating and deepening 'self-regulating' markets at village levels. Drawing on an ethnographic study conducted in a South Indian state, I show that the community level 'neoliberal disciplining' that microfinance entails does not proceed without resistance. Whilst SHGs seek to constitute women as fiscally disciplined savers and borrowers, women stake their 'rightful' entitlement to bank credit even as they reject outright the entrepreneurial subjectivities they are expected to assume. They pursue purposes and ends that extend well beyond 'financial inclusion.'
 
Publisher University Library System, University of Pittsburgh
 
Date 2015-02-26
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article
info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
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Format application/pdf
 
Identifier http://jwsr.pitt.edu/ojs/index.php/jwsr/article/view/527
10.5195/jwsr.2015.527
 
Source Journal of World-Systems Research; Volume 21, Number 1, Winter/Spring 2015; 50-68
1076-156X
 
Language eng
 
Relation http://jwsr.pitt.edu/ojs/index.php/jwsr/article/view/527/539
 
Rights Copyright (c) 2015 K. Kalpana
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0