Kiva.org, Person-to-Person Lending, and the Conditions of Intercultural Contact

Abstract

Emerging groups such as Kiva International are using the Internet to make person-to-person microlending available by matching mostly First World lenders with Third World borrowers. This study analyzes 635 lender profile Web pages on Kiva.org to identify how Kiva International and its lenders imagine this intercultural, financial exchange through an analysis of discourses that lenders use in their lender profiles to describe their motivations for lending. This article first provides background on Kiva International and the role of the Internet in addressing power inequalities, and then explains the methodological approach. Next, we reveal the themes that emerged in our analysis of lender profiles, addressing the ways that neoliberal discourses of individualism and personal responsibility guide lenders’ motivations for participating in Kiva.org's microlending process. Finally, we offer discussion and implications of this deployment of neoliberal discourse for intercultural communication, new media, and global financial exchanges, arguing that seemingly liberal and progressive Internet-discourses can perpetuate problematic neoliberal notions.

KEYTERMS:

• Kiva
• microlending
• individualism
• personal responsibility
• Internet

Notes

Kiva notes that there are 760,000 Kiva users, but approximately 480,000 of these users have actually funded a loan. The lenders represent over 200 countries and average six loans per lender. Over 200,000 loans have been funded through Kiva to borrowers in over 50 countries (Kiva, 2010).

Microcredit was the original model that caught on globally; however, for some in the 1990s, it morphed into a for-profit venture known as microfinance. Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that rely upon external donors to fund loans often offer microcredit (Kiva falls in this category) whereas microfinance, as a profit-making enterprise, is generally self-financed. These terms often get used interchangeably in popular discourse, although for some scholars the differences are important.

Despite the criticisms of microlending generally, and even the Grameen Bank specifically, the Grameen Bank has certainly revolutionized many people's thinking about who is worth lending to and who can participate in economic ventures. Although the Grameen Bank undoubtedly provided a template for other microlending organizations that is important to mention, outside of providing inspiration, the Grameen Bank has little relevance to this particular study of lenders’ self-representations on Kiva.org. Other communication scholars have written extensively about Grameen Bank, its’ organizational structure, and its effectiveness (Papa, Auwal, & Singhal, 1997).

Since 2009, the Kiva.org's website has changed and no longer lists featured lenders on its homepage. The present homepage contains squares of borrower pictures with pop-up boxes that offer information on the borrower.

Numerous featured lenders and lending groups were listed on the home page every day, and lenders changed when the screen was refreshed. The visitor could click on the featured lender to view more information, and we analyzed these detailed individual lender pages. We visited Kiva's website throughout the day and downloaded the lenders who were highlighted in the featured lender section. In total, profiles were collected on approximately 60 days, averaging about 11 different profiles per day; this method offered a 3-month snapshot of Kiva's featured lenders.

In this article, when citing lender comments, we follow Kiva's convention of coupling lenders’ names with their self-identified locale.

For example, in many pictures, borrowers are depicted in physical proximity to their entrepreneurial product or service and in relation to labor, namely in front of or to the side of their product.