Microcredit for Women: Kerala-style

Authors

  • Joan McFarland St. Thomas University

Keywords:

Economic development, Microfinance, Organizational change, Social development,

Abstract

The paper presents a case study of microcredit for women in the state of Kerala, India. Although the microcredit movement has been challenged by the left for its adoption of a banking model, in Kerala, banking practices have not generally been adopted and, contrary to the model, local government plays a major role in delivery. However, with regard to feminist questioning of the ability of microcredit to meaningfully empower women, it is the case in Kerala that women's empowerment, although accepted as a goal in microcredit projects, does not extend to what we may call "gender empowerment."

Metrics

Metrics Loading ...

Author Biography

Joan McFarland, St. Thomas University

Joan McFarland teaches political economy, international development and women's studies at St. Thomas University in Fredericton, New Brunswick. Her recent publications have been on the political economy of women's work and training in New Brunswick.

Downloads

Published

2004-10-01

Issue

Vol. 29 No. 1 (2004): Transphobia and Transactivism

Section

Original Research

License

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:

1. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication, with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.

2. Authors are aware that articles published in Atlantis are indexed and made available through various scholarly and professional search tools, including but not limited to Erudit.

3. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.

4. Authors are permitted and encouraged to preprint their work, that is, post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process. This can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work. Read more on preprints here.