An innovative resilience approach: Financial self-help groups in contemporary financial landscapes in the Netherlands

Julie-Marthe Lehmann and Peer Smets
Additional contact information
Julie-Marthe Lehmann: Faculty of Business, Finance and Marketing, Research Platform The Next Economy, The Hague University of Applied Sciences, The Hague, The Netherlands
Peer Smets: Department of Sociology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Environment and Planning A, 2020, vol. 52, issue 5, 898-915

Abstract: This study questions efficiency-driven institutions in the financial sector during and after the financial crisis of 2008. Frustration about inadequately working financial institutions encouraged citizens to employ self-help initiatives reflected in the revival of, for example, financial cooperatives, sharing economies and community currencies. Some of these grassroots initiatives, such as financial self-help groups, are imported by migrants and refugees. Compared to the formal banking system, financial self-help groups claim effectivity and a human face instead of efficiency in operation and management. We look at financial self-help groups among Ethiopians and Ghanaians living in the Netherlands, placing these financial self-help groups within the contemporary financial landscape. Here, diversity instead of a monoculture of banking institutions shows us a way to a more sustainable financial system. Moreover, this article shows that a combination of different kinds of resilience creates possibilities for analysing the dynamics of a kaleidoscope of financial arrangements and institutions.

Keywords: ROSCAs; self-help groups; resilience; financial landscape; grassroots initiatives (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0308518X19882946 (text/html)

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:sae:envira:v:52:y:2020:i:5:p:898-915

DOI: 10.1177/0308518X19882946

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Environment and Planning A
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().