Financing agrarian change: Geographies of credit and debt in the global south

Green, W. Nathan

doi:10.1177/03091325221083211

Cited by 23 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 134 publications

(210 reference statements)

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“…Kish and Fairbairn, 2018). This is surprising given that smallholder farmers are a key target group of microfinance across the global south (Green, 2020a(Green, , 2022aStolz and Lai, 2019;Watts and Scales, 2020). In fact, proponents of microfinance claim that only with access to finance can farmers develop their livelihoods and address food insecurity.…”

Section: Microfinance and Debtscapesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Duplicitous debtscapes: Unveiling social impact investment for microfinance

Green

2022

Environ Plan A

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Social impact investment for microfinance has become a dominant form of poverty regulation in the global south. These investments aim to alleviate poverty by extending financial services like credit to the world's poor, particularly smallholder farmers. The International Finance Corporation is a major player in this effort. It has channeled finance capital to microfinance institutions around the world through its Social Bond Program, among other mechanisms. In this paper, I analyze how the International Finance Corporation's impact investments depend on an ideological “way of seeing” poverty, informed by representations of agrarian landscapes, which mystifies the exploitative relations of microfinance debt. I term these representations duplicitous debtscapes. My analysis is based on research about Cambodia, where the International Finance Corporation is a key supporter of the country's biggest microfinance institutions. I argue that the duplicitous debtscapes of the International Finance Corporation and its Cambodian partners veil the conditions of production and social reproduction faced by indebted smallholder farmers, thereby legitimizing capital accumulation for impact investors. Yet these debtscapes are also contested. Thus, I further argue that the outcomes of debtscapes are shaped by the struggle over their representation. By studying impact investment in terms of the visual politics of debt, this paper contributes to scholarship about the financialization of poverty in development and financial geography.

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Section: Microfinance and Debtscapesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Duplicitous debtscapes: Unveiling social impact investment for microfinance

Green

2022

Environ Plan A

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“…This paper makes two contributions to existing scholarship about financialisation, particularly in the global South. First, it provides new conceptual tools for critical geographies of debt (Corbridge 1993; Green 2022; Harker 2020; Harker and Kirwan 2019; Rankin 2013; Walks 2013). Specifically, my research shows how monetary dependency on the US dollar in Cambodia has helped to create what Soederberg (2014) calls a “debtfare state”, where poverty is governed through private debt rather than state welfare programmes.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Financial Inclusion or Subordination? The Monetary Politics of Debt in Cambodia

Green

2023

Antipode

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Financial inclusion is a leading driver of household debt across the global South. Although critical geographers have analysed this debt through the lens of financialisation, few have examined it in terms of monetary politics. This is a salient issue, because poorer nations often have limited control over their monetary policy due to their dependence on foreign currencies, which can adversely affect the structure of their financial markets. Building on the concept of monetary dependency from scholarship on financial subordination, I analyse the monetary politics of debt in Cambodia. Drawing on elite interviews and ethnographic research, I argue that Cambodia's extreme monetary dependence on the US dollar has shaped monetary and fiscal policies that compel poorer households to take on private debt to pay for their basic needs. This paper advances critical geographies of debt and development by studying financial subordination and its impact on financial inclusion in the global South.

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“…Yet, by building a global industry based on financial performance indicators, microfinance is managed and regulated in ways that do not account for these informal practices. As a result, this industry claims that it successfully helps to alleviate poverty, even as it accumulates profits by appropriating wealth from poor and low‐income households across the global South (Bateman, 2010; Bernards, 2022; Green, 2022a; Schuster and Kar, 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Underside of Microfinance: Performance Indicators and Informal Debt in Cambodia

Green¹,

Chhom²,

Mony³

et al. 2023

Development and Change

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Microfinance is a dominant strategy used to promote rural development around the world. Rather than directly track its impact on borrowers, however, microfinance institutions rely on indicators of financial performance adopted from commercial banking as proxies for positive social impact. Yet, as critical research has shown, the industry depends on coercive peer pressure, social shaming and various forms of gendered exploitation to achieve its high rates of loan repayment. This article maintains that there is a need to investigate how the microfinance industry's own indicators of impact contribute to the ways microfinance can harm borrowers. Based on qualitative research in Cambodia during 2021 and 2022, the article demonstrates how financial performance indicators, most notably portfolio quality, both hide and exacerbate the ways that borrowers juggle debt between formal and informal lenders. In making this argument, the article advances critical scholarship on microfinance by showing how microfinance repayment structures debt‐juggling practices in ways that put borrowers at greater risk of over‐indebtedness. As a result, the microfinance industry is able to claim that it successfully helps to alleviate poverty, even as it accumulates profits by appropriating wealth from poor and low‐income households across the global South.

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Financing agrarian change: Geographies of credit and debt in the global south

Cited by 23 publications

References 134 publications

Duplicitous debtscapes: Unveiling social impact investment for microfinance

Duplicitous debtscapes: Unveiling social impact investment for microfinance

Financial Inclusion or Subordination? The Monetary Politics of Debt in Cambodia

The Underside of Microfinance: Performance Indicators and Informal Debt in Cambodia

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