Gender, mobility and the financialisation of development

Geopolitics

Volumn 15, Issue 3, 2010, Pages 606-627

  Young, Stephen ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

CAPITAL FLOW; COMMERCIALIZATION; DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY; EMPOWERMENT; GENDER ROLE; GEOPOLITICS; MICROFINANCE; MOBILITY; POLITICAL INTEGRATION; POVERTY ALLEVIATION; WOMENS STATUS;

ANDHRA PRADESH; INDIA;

EID: 77956078854     PISSN: 14650045     EISSN: 15573028     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/14650040903501104     Document Type: Article

References (135)

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4. See M. Yunus, Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty (New York: Public Affairs 1999); and the Microcredit Summit Declaration from 1997" available at .
5. For a critique see L. Mayoux, 'Questioning Virtuous Spirals: Micro-Finance and Women's Empowerment in Africa', in Journal of International Development 11 (1997) pp. 957-984.
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10. L. Milgram, 'Banking on Bananas, Crediting Crafts: Financing Women's Work in the Philippine Cordillera' and K. Rankin, 'Social Capital, Microfinance, and the Politics of Development', in J. Fernando (ed.), Microfinance: Perils and Prospects (New York: Routledge 2006).
11. Also see H. Weber, 'The Imposition of a Global Development Architecture: The Example of Microcredit', Review of International Studies 28 (2002) pp. 537-555;
12. H. Weber, 'The New Economy and Social Risk: Banking on the Poor', Review of International Political Economy 11/4 (2004) pp. 356-386;
13. J. Fernando, 'Microcredit and Empowerment: Visibility Without Power', in J. Fernando (ed.), Microfinance: Perils and Prospects (New York: Routledge 2006).
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22. In the global North, a similar argument can be made regarding 'alternative' financial institutions such as 'Payday Loans'. See S. M. Graves, 'Landscapes of Predation, Landscapes of Neglect: A Location Analysis of Payday Lenders and Banks', The Professional Geographer 55/3 (2003) pp. 303-317.
23. On gender and mobility also see M. B. Mills, 'Gender and Inequality in the Global Labor Force', Annual Review of Anthropology 32 (2003) pp. 41-62;
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26. J. Fernando, 'Disciplining the Mother: Micro-Credit Programs in Bangladesh', Ghadar 1/1 (1997);
27. K. Rankin, 'Social Capital, Microfinance, and the Politics of Development', Journal of Feminist Economics 8/1 (2002) pp. 1-24;
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30. A. J. Secor, 'Belaboring Gender: The Spatial Practice of Work and the Politics of 'Making Do' in Istanbul', Environment and Planning A 35/12 (2003) pp. 2209-2227.
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35. Sangtin Writers Collective and R. Nagar, Playing with Fire: Feminist Thought and Activism through Seven Lives in India (Minneapolis: U of Minnesota Press 2007).
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43. Sidaway and Pryke, 'The Strange Geographies of "Emerging Markets"', Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 25/2 (2000) pp. 187-201.
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45. G. R. Krippner, 'The Financialization of the American Economy', Socio-Economic Review 3/2 (2005) pp. 173-208.
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47. M. Coleman, 'Thinking About the World Bank's "Accordion" Geography of Financial Globalization', Political Geography 21 (2002) pp. 495-524;
48. E. J. Popke, 'Recasting Geopolitics: The Discursive Scripting of the International Monetary Fund', Political Geography 13/3 (1994) pp. 255-269.
49. P. Langley, 'The Making of Investor Subjects in Anglo-American Pensions', Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 24/6 (2006) pp. 919-934;
50. A. Barry, T. Osborne, and N. S. Rose, Foucault and Political Reason: Liberalism, Neo-Liberalism, and Rationalities of Government (University of Chicago Press 1996).
51. Harmes, 'Mass Investment Culture', New Left Review 9 (2001);
52. R. Martin, The Financialization of Everyday Life (Philadelphia: Temple University Press 2002).
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54. R. O'Brien, Global Financial Integration: The End of Geography (London: Pinter Publishers 1992).
55. Peter Gowan argues, the term 'Wall Street' should be understood to include London, which acts as a satellite for many Wall Street institutions due to its more lax regulations. See P. Gowan, 'Crisis in the Heartland,' New Left Review 55 (Jan./Feb. 2009).
56. L. T. Kendall and M. J. Fishman, A Primer on Securitization (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press 1996).
57. E. LiPuma and B. Lee, Financial Derivatives and the Globalization of Risk (London: Duke University Press 2004).
58. T. Sinclair, The New Masters of Capital: American Bond Rating Agencies and the Politics of Creditworthiness (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press 2005).
59. A third company, Fitch, has now also claimed a significant share of the global rating market but powerful regulatory bodies such as the US Securities and Exchange Commission and the Bank for International Settlements have generally assigned greater authority and influence to the ratings of Moody's and S&P's.
60. F. Partnoy, 'The Siskel and Ebert of Financial Markets?: Two Thumbs Down for the Credit Rating Agencies', Washington University Law Quarterly 77 (1999) p. 647.
61. Mitchell and Beckett, 'Securing the Global City: Crime, Consulting, Risk, and Ratings in the Production of Urban Space', Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies 15/1 (2008) pp. 75-100.
62. See also L. Mosley, Global Capital and National Governments (Cambridge, New York, Melbourne: Cambridge University Press 2003).
63. Mitchell and Beckett, 'Securing the Global City: Crime, Consulting, Risk, and Ratings in the Production of Urban Space', Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies 15/1 (2008) pp. 75-100
64. I use the term 'assemblage' rather than 'architecture' to avoid suggesting that these institutions form a seamless and stable regulatory framework.
65. H. Weber, 'A Political Analysis of the PRSP Initiative: Social Struggles and the Organization of Persistent Relations of Inequality', Globalizations 3/2 (June 2006) pp. 187-206.
66. Sidaway and Pryke, 'The Strange Geographies of "Emerging Markets"', Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 25/2 (2000) pp. 187-201.
67. A. Smith, 'Imagining Geographies of the 'New Europe': Geo-Economic Power and the New European Architecture of Integration', Political Geography 21 (2002) pp. 647-670
68. Ó Tuathail, 'Emerging Markets and Other Simulations: Mexico, Chiapas and the Geofinancial Panopticon', Ecumune 4/3 (1997) pp. 300-317.
69. W. Larner and R. Le Heron, 'The Spaces and Subjects of a Globalising Economy: A Situated Exploration of Method', Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 20/6 (2002) pp. 753-774. It is also crucial to note that these technologies work in conjunction with more draconian security measures to displace and incarcerate undesirable populations;
70. see Mitchell and Beckett, 'Securing the Global City: Crime, Consulting, Risk, and Ratings in the Production of Urban Space', Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies 15/1 (2008) pp. 75-100.
71. World Development Report, 1999-2000.
72. For example, Z. Bauman, Liquid Modernity (Cambridge: Polity Press 2000)
73. cf. Karen Ho, 'Situating Global Capitalisms: A View from Wall Street Investment Banks', Cultural Anthropology 20/1 (2005) pp. 68-96.
74. For an analysis that focuses on the relative stasis of everyday life in the context of neoliberal economic change see C. Jeffrey, 'Generation Nowhere: Rethinking Youth Through the Lens of Unemployed Young Men', Progress in Human Geography 32/6 (2008) pp. 739-758.
75. S. Roberts, 'Global Strategic Vision: Managing the World', in R. W. Perry and B. Maurer (eds.), Globalization Under Construction: Governmentality, Law, and Identity (Minneapolis: U of Minnesota Press 2003).
76. D. Haraway, 'Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in feminism and the Privilege of Partial perspective', Feminist Studies 14 (1988) pp. 575-599.
77. C. Calhoun, 'The Class Consciousness of Frequent Travelers: Toward a Critique of Actually Existing Cosmopolitanism', South Atlantic Quarterly 101/4 (2002) pp. 869-897;
78. M. Sparke, 'A Neoliberal Nexus: Citizenship, Security and the Future of the Border', Political Geography 25/2 (2006) pp. 151-180.
79. L. McDowell, Capital Culture: Gender at Work in the City (Oxford: Blackwell 1993). McDowell further emphasises that socialising after work also tends to take place in bars, golf courses, sports stadiums, also culturally 'male' spaces, which works to further marginalise women.
80. See also Caitlin Zaloom, 'Ambiguous Numbers: Trading Technologies and Interpretation in Financial Markets', American Ethnologist 30/2 (2003) pp. 258-272.
81. Cited in Harmes, 'Mass Investment Culture', New Left Review 9 (2001).
82. C. Enloe, Bananas, Beaches & Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics (Berkeley: University of California Press 1990).
83. G. Pratt and B. Yeoh, 'Transnational (Counter) Topographies', Gender, Place and Culture - A Journal of Feminist Geography 10/2 (2003) pp. 159-166;
84. C. Katz, 'Vagabond Capitalism and the Necessity of Social Reproduction', Antipode 33/4 (2001) pp. 709-728;
85. S. Sassen, 'Women's Burden: Counter-Geographies of Globalization and the Feminization of Survival', Nordic Journal of International Law 71 (2002) 255-274;
86. M. Wright, Disposable Women and Other Myths of Global Capitalism (New York and London: Routledge 2006).
87. Katz, 'Vagabond Capitalism and the Necessity of Social Reproduction', Antipode 33/4 (2001) p. 710.
88. Katz, 'Vagabond Capitalism and the Necessity of Social Reproduction', Antipode 33/4 (2001) p. 710.
89. Pratt and Yeoh, 'Transnational (Counter) Topographies', Gender, Place and Culture - A Journal of Feminist Geography 10/2 (2003) pp. 159-166.
90. G. Pratt, 'From Registered Nurse to Registered Nanny: Discursive Geographies of Filipina Domestic Workers in Vancouver, B.C.', Economic Geography 75/3 (1997) pp. 215-236;
91. D. Mattingly, 'The Home and the World: Domestic Service and International Networks of Caring Labor', Annals of the Association American Geographers 91/2 (2001) pp. 370-386.
92. L. McDowell, A. Batnitzky, and S. Dyer, 'Internationalization and the Spaces of Temporary Labour: The Global Assembly of a Local Workforce', British Journal of Industrial Relations 46/4 (2008) pp. 750-770.
93. L. McDowell, A. Batnitzky, and S. Dyer, 'Internationalization and the Spaces of Temporary Labour: The Global Assembly of a Local Workforce', British Journal of Industrial Relations 46/4 (2008) pp. 750-770.
94. K. Rose, Where Women Are Leaders: The SEWA Movement in India (London, Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Zed Books Ltd. 1992).
95. See K. Rankin, 'Manufacturing Rural Finance in Asia: Institutional assemblages, Market Societies, Entrepreneurial Subjects', Geoforum 39 (2008) pp. 1965-1977.
96. See also A. Sharma, 'Crossbreeding Institutions, Breeding Struggle: Women's Empowerment, Neoliberal Governmentality, and State (Re)Formation in India', Cultural Anthropology 21/1 (2006) pp. 60-95.
97. Weber, 'The Imposition of a Global Development Architecture: The Example of Microcredit', Review of International Studies 28 (2002) pp. 537-555.
98. According to a recent paper sponsored by the Grameen Foundation the demand for microfinance currently stands at around $300 billion, whilst market supply is just $4 billion. See J. Meehan, 'Tapping the Financial Markets for Microfinance', available online at .
99. Available online at
100. S. Corbridge and J. Harriss, Reinventing India: Liberalization, Hindu Nationalism and Popular Democracy (Malden, MA: Polity Press 2000).
101. S. Rao, 'Reforms with a Female Face: Gender, Liberalization, and Economic Policy in Andhra Pradesh, India', World Development 36/7 (2008) pp. 1213-1232;
102. K. C. Suri, 'The Dilemma of Democracy: Economic Reforms and Electoral Politics in Andhra Pradesh', in J. Mooij (ed.), The Politics of Economic Reforms in India (New Delhi, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications 2005).
103. J. A. Kirk, 'Banking on India's State's: The Politics of World Bank Reform Programs in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka', India Review 4/3 (2005) pp. 287-325.
104. Andhra Pradesh Human Development Report, prepared by the Center for Economic and Social Studies (CESS), 2008.
105. The 'Self Help Group' programme was originally part of the central government's Development of Women and Children in Rural Areas (DWCRA) project.
106. Andhra Pradesh Human Development Report, prepared by the Center for Economic and Social Studies (CESS), 2008.
107. J. Manor, 'Successful Governance Reforms in Two Indian States: Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh', Commonwealth & Comparative Politics 45/4 (2007) pp. 425-451.
108. 'Microfinance Business to Touch $2 billion by 2009', The Economic Times (India), 28 Jan. 2008, available at , accessed 16 Jan. 2009.
109. ICICI funds around 80% of the Indian commercial microfinance market. Citibank and Deutche Bank have also been involved in lending.
110. M. Kripalani and C. Lindblad, 'Tiny Loans, High Finance', Businessweek, 27 Sep. 2004, available at , accessed 18 Jan. 2009.
111. .
112. The Grameen Bank in Bangladesh has itself introduced mobile phone banking after entering into a partnership with a Norwegian telephone company.
113. Meehan, 'Tapping the Financial Markets for Microfinance', available online at .
114. Field officers work at the branch level. Their work involves forming groups, taking loans to villages, conducting meetings, and collecting repayments.
115. Field Officer vacancies are advertised in newspapers and attract hundreds of applicants per job. Candidates must have completed college level education to be considered. A selection of applicants is then invited to take a written exam, followed by a public speech test, and finally a personal interview. If they are given a job, the new staff will be approximately three weeks training and then posted to work at a branch in another district.
116. See Fernando, 'Disciplining the Mother: Micro-Credit Programs in Bangladesh', Ghadar 1/1 (1997) on the 'clientelization of gender'.
117. The field officers I interviewed received approximately 5,000 rupees a month ($125), a significant amount of money in rural Andhra. There are usually additional incentives for those who form more groups, lend more money, and maintain the highest repayment rates.
118. Osella and Osella, South Asian Masculinities: Context of Change, Sites of Continuity (Delhi: Kali for Women & Women Unlimited 2004).
119. Gidwani and Sivaramakrishnan, 'Circular Migration and Rural Cosmopolitanism in India', Contributions to Indian Sociology 37 (2003) pp. 339-367.
120. C. Jeffrey, 'Kicking Away the Ladder: Student Politics and the Making of an Indian Middle Class', Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 26/3 (2008) pp. 517-536.
121. This is not to say that it is the only way for young men to assert themselves culturally and politically. Several scholars have pointed to other styles and arenas of masculinity including those associated with criminal networks, religious nationalism, and student politics.
122. J. Morduch, 'The Microfinance Promise', Journal of Economic Literature 37/4 p. 1584.
123. For a critique of how 'moral hazard' arguments have been used to argue for the dismantling of public sector programmes and promotion of microfinance see S. Young, 'The Moral Hazards of Microfinance: Restructuring Rural Credit in India', Antipode 42/1 (2010) pp. 201-223.
124. This is not particular to any MFI but widespread practice. See Fernando, 'Disciplining the Mother: Micro-Credit Programs in Bangladesh', Ghadar 1/1 (1997).
125. V. A. Lawson, 'Tailoring is a Profession; Seamstressing is Just Work!', Environment and Planning A 30 (1998) pp. 209-227.
126. See also J. G. Townsend, Women's Voices from the Rainforest (London, New York: Routledge 1995).
127. A. Jaggar, 'Vulnerable Women and Neo-Liberal Globalization: Debt Burdens Undermine Women's Health in the Global South', Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics, 23/6 (2002) pp. 1573-1200.
128. I am grateful to Vandana Desai for pushing me to think more carefully about how 'empowerment' is conceptualised and measured during a talk at Royal Holloway University. A full discussion of the term is beyond the scope of this paper but see D. Narayan (ed.), Measuring Empowerment: Cross Disciplinary Perspectives (Washington, DC: World Bank 2005)
129. . Mahmood, Politics of Piety: the Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 2005).
130. Y. B. Shakya and K. Rankin, 'The Politics of Subversion in Development Practice: Microfinance in Nepal and Vietnam', Journal of Development Studies 44/8 (2008) pp. 1214-1235.
131. Young, 'The Moral Hazards of Microfinance: Restructuring Rural Credit in India', Antipode 42/1 (2010) pp. 201-223.
132. Secor, 'Belaboring Gender: The Spatial Practice of Work and the Politics of 'Making Do' in Istanbul', Environment and Planning A 35/12 (2003) pp. 2209-2227.
133. See Young, 'The Moral Hazards of Microfinance: Restructuring Rural Credit in India', Antipode 42/1 (2010) pp. 201-223;
134. M. Moodie, 'Enter Microcredit: A New Culture of Women's Empowerment in Rajasthan?', American Ethnologist 35/3 (2008) pp. 454-465.
135. Sangtin Writers and R. Nagar, Playing with Fire: Feminist Thought and Activism through Seven Lives in India (Minneapolis: U of Minnesota Press 2007).