Microcredit Schemes of Tension: Women and the Economic Violence of Credit Mobilization in Ibadan, Nigeria

Olubukola Olayiwola

A chapter in Infrastructure, Morality, Food and Clothing, and New Developments in Latin America, 2021, vol. 41, pp 97-114 from Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Abstract: Microcredit schemes fashioned after the Grameen Bank model are widely acclaimed for their potential for empowering the poor through access to credit based on social collateral. However, women market vendors in Ibadan refer to microcredit loans asowo komulelanta, a term which translates as “resting the breasts on a hot kerosene lantern,” a plain critique of the stringent conditions of loan repayment. This paper presents the lived experience of borrowers based upon ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 2017 and 2019. It reflects on the Nigerian state's neoliberal policies of microfinance and the experience of women borrowers. The paper argues that social–emotional vulnerability of women borrowers is exacerbated by the acceptance of a loan due to the rigid system of repayment and harassment from providers.

Keywords: Microcredit; women borrowers; economic violence; social–emotional vulnerability; loan drive; collective debt; collective shame (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eme:reanzz:s0190-128120210000041005

DOI: 10.1108/S0190-128120210000041005

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