Microfinance: Held to Account

Only few recent ideas have generated as much enthusiasm for poverty alleviation in countries of the southern hemisphere as the idea of microfinance. It promises both the provision of costeffective banking services to poor households and lifting people out of poverty through microenterprise development and self employment (Murdoch, 1998). Success stories, such as the granting of the Nobel Peace Prize to Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank in 2006, are being broadcasted around the world. Although evidence for the role of microfinance in poverty alleviation remains highly contested, especially due to recent media coverage about suicides among borrowers (Biswas, 2010), advocates of these programs
still insist on its continuation. Marguerite Robinson, author of The Microfinance Revolution, states that, despite ups and downs and some setbacks, “it seems like the idea of sustainable finance for the poor is here to stay” (MCS, 2001, p. 5). By having successfully established the key tenet that an estimated 2.7 billion poor people worldwide are in need of access to formal financial services (World Bank, 2011), the industry’s practices are almost exclusively
criticized by positivist approaches without questioning its underlying assumptions. Due to its hegemonic appearance, it is reasonable to state that “microfinance is everywhere” (Roy, 2010,
p. 22). This essay aims to question the concept of microfinance itself as being common sense.
By adopting a poststructuralist attitude, it is possible to uncover and expose these reigning assumptions (Agarwal, 1996). In this sense, this analysis attempts to reveal this example of “establishment of truth” (Foucault, 1975, p. 184) because we not only govern others and ourselves according to these powerful truths but truth is also produced through the way we govern others and ourselves (Dean, 2010). The first section provides a brief overview of the extent to which microfinance has entered the global stage and afterwards, it tries to contextualize this idea within the emergence of advanced liberal government and millennial
development. The subsequent section aims to show the hegemonic features of microfinance, especially through the control of knowledge through the CGAP initiative, before continuing
with an in-depth study of different contradictions of empowerment as a major feature of microfinance. The final part summarizes the results by highlighting the mechanisms through which microfinance governs its recipients.