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“Low Profile” or Entrepreneurial? Gender, Class, and Cultural Adaptation in the Global Microfinance Industry

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  • Radhakrishnan, Smitha

Abstract

This study examines how discourses of entrepreneurial womanhood, filtered through a chain of hierarchically positioned actors in global microfinance, translate into interactions with borrowers. Drawing from ethnography, interviews, and document analysis on a set of entrepreneurial trainings delivered to nonentrepreneurial borrowers in urban India, this study argues that parallel, conflicting processes of cultural adaptation within the organization, and tensions between various actors, create an environment in which there is no incentive to cater to the interests of working class clients. Commercialized microfinance, thus, may not necessarily produce accountability to client interests.

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  • Radhakrishnan, Smitha, 2015. "“Low Profile” or Entrepreneurial? Gender, Class, and Cultural Adaptation in the Global Microfinance Industry," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 264-274.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:74:y:2015:i:c:p:264-274
    DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2015.05.017
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    2. Coduras, Alicia & Saiz-Alvarez, José Manuel & Ruiz, Jesús, 2016. "Measuring Readiness for Entrepreneurship: An Information Tool Proposal," MPRA Paper 86603, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Sarah Wali Qazi, M. Zaki Rashidi, 2018. "Nurturing Women Empowerment? A Phenomenological Study of the Linkages between Women, Micro Entrepreneurship and Access to Microcredit," Journal of Management Sciences, Geist Science, Iqra University, Faculty of Business Administration, vol. 5(2), pages 3-21, October.
    4. Rashedur Chowdhury, 2023. "Misrepresentation of Marginalized Groups: A Critique of Epistemic Neocolonialism," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 186(3), pages 553-570, September.
    5. Adriana Kemp & Nitza Berkovitch, 2020. "Uneasy passages between neoliberalism and feminism: Social inclusion and financialization in Israel's empowerment microfinance," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(4), pages 507-526, July.
    6. Gonzales Martinez, Rolando & D’Espallier, Bert & Mersland, Roy, 2021. "Bifurcations in business profitability: An agent-based simulation of homophily in self-financing groups," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 495-514.
    7. Goodman, Rachael, 2017. "Borrowing Money, Exchanging Relationships: Making Microfinance Fit into Local Lives in Kumaon, India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 362-373.
    8. Beck, Erin, 2016. "Repopulating Development: An Agent-Based Approach to Studying Development Interventions," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 19-32.
    9. Dong, Jiayun & Liang, Wenyuan & Liu, Weiping & Liu, Jinlong & Managi, Shunsuke, 2020. "Does forestland possession enhance households’ access to credit?—Examining China’s forestland mortgage policy," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 78-87.

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