Politicized Microfinance

"No one else has studied the opportunities and constraints in access to microcredit based on the intersectional identities of race, ethnicity, and gender. Caroline Shenaz Hossein's original and important findings are a major contribution to research on microcredit." -- Bipasha Baruah, Canada Research Chair in Global Women's Issues, Western University "Politicized Microfinance is a very interesting and pioneering study of a typically under-researched and underdeveloped issue in the Caribbean experience. Caroline Shenaz Hossein utilizes the appropriate combination of quantitative data and insightful qualitative interpretations and analysis." -- Perry Mars, Professor Emeritus, African American Studies, Wayne State University "Caroline Shenaz Hossein provides an innovative analysis that explores the importance of partisan, identity, and sexual politics in micro-lending. Politicized Microfinance is exciting, multilayered and long overdue scholarship that deepens our understanding of micro-financing and the micro-enterprise industry, particularly along race, gender, class and cultural dimensions." -- Jessica Gordon Nembhard, Professor, Department of Africana Studies, John Jay College CUNY

In this work, Caroline Shenaz Hossein explores the politics, histories and social prejudices that have shaped the legacy of microbanking in Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica and Trinidad.

When Grameen Bank was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006, microfinance was lauded as an important contributor to the economic development of the Global South. However, political scandals, mission-drift, and excessive commercialization have tarnished this example of responsible or inclusive financial development. Politicized Microfinance insightfully discusses exclusion while providing a path towards redemption.

In this work, Caroline Shenaz Hossein explores the politics, histories and social prejudices that have shaped the legacy of microbanking in Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica and Trinidad. Writing from a feminist perspective, Hossein’s analysis is rooted in original qualitative data and offers multiple solutions that prioritize the needs of marginalized and historically oppressed people of African descent.

A must read for scholars of political economy, diaspora studies, social economy, women’s studies, as well as development practitioners, Politicized Microfinance convincinglydeftly argues for microfinance to return to its origins as a political tool, fighting for those living in the margins.