Through the Valley and Shadow of Death: Microcredit, Neoliberal Agriculture and Peasant Dispossession in Bangladesh

• In Event: 504 - Section on Economic Sociology Paper Session. Credit, Poverty and Inequality

Abstract

This paper analyzes the ostensibly disparate processes of mounting peasant indebtedness and the phenomenal rise of microfinance institutions (MFIs) in Bangladesh in light of the country’s broader agrarian context of agricultural commoditization, input subsidy reduction and a systematic lessening of the subsidized agricultural credit system. I use the concept of ‘accumulation by dispossession/encroachment’ to specifically argue that the spread of commercial microcredit is facilitating the process of peasant dispossession in the wake of neoliberal agrarian reforms in Bangladesh. Based on field data gathered through five months of ethnographic research in 2012, I offer empirical evidence of the way in which the capital accumulation model of Bangladeshi MFIs ensnares peasant producers in debt peonage.

Author

• Manoj Misra, University of Alberta