How do the poor handle money? What do the financial diaries of char dwellers tell us about financial inclusion?

Kuntala Lahiri–Dutt ()

ASARC Working Papers from The Australian National University, Australia South Asia Research Centre

Abstract: Derived from livelihoods surveys and ethnographic material about people living on the chars, or river islands, in deltaic lower Bengal, this paper illustrates the complex, diverse and ingenious ways that the poor manage money. These islands constitute some of the most vulnerable locations housing some of the poorest communities; state services and facilities do not reach the chars because they are not listed as land in revenue records. It demonstrates that the poor live in a diverse economy where community spirit, family assistance and trust play roles equally important to markets. In doing so, it puts forth a grounded-in-the-field, evidence-based, critique of the slogan 'financial inclusion' that has gained prominence in recent years.

Keywords: Financial diary; Financial inclusion; Micro‐finance; India; Char (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C81 D12 D31 D63 E42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 20
Date: 2012
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://crawford.anu.edu.au/acde/asarc/pdf/papers/2012/WP2012_16.pdf (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 404 Not Found

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pas:asarcc:2012-16

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in ASARC Working Papers from The Australian National University, Australia South Asia Research Centre Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Raghbendra Jha ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).