Examining microcredit self-help groups through the lens of feminist dignity

ABSTRACT

Despite decades of controversy, microcredit initiatives continue to be championed by government aid agencies as a ‘win-win’ for both international development and women’s empowerment, bolstered by ideas of ‘smart economics.’ Most scholarship critiques these programs from a Marxist or poststructuralist perspective. This article instead investigates microcredit programming through the lens of feminist dignity and demonstrates the use of a framework founded on this idea. By using this framework to interrogate evidence from in-depth qualitative field research in West Bengal, India, this article argues that a focus on feminist dignity can improve women’s agency and wellbeing.

KEYWORDS:

• Empowerment
• dignity
• gender and development
• self-help group
• India

Acknowledgments

I want to thank Dr Linda Bartolomei, Dr Caroline Lenette and Dr Eileen Pittaway for their support for this PhD research project. I also wish to thank Dr Kristy Ward and Dr Tanya Jakimow for their feedback on an earlier version of this article. I am also grateful for the comments from the anonymous reviewers which helped to shape this article and guide the final version.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. ‘Scheduled castes’ are frequently referred to as Dalits, particularly outside of West Bengal. Women interviewed in SHGs referred to themselves as ‘SC’ (scheduled caste) so I have employed this terminology here.

2. Women noted that attitudes about caste were only shifted amongst other SHG participants who came from poorer general caste backgrounds. Women who were wealthy and ‘upper’ caste did not interact through the SHG model and relations with these women were unchanged.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Annabel Dulhunty

Dr Annabel Dulhunty is a Lecturer at the Crawford School of Public Policy at the Australian National University in Canberra. Dr Dulhunty is a development studies scholar, with extensive experience working on women’s empowerment initiatives. Her areas of interest include aid policy and inequality in South Asia.