scholarly journals Bad debt: The women’s mobilization against the financial industry in Kyrgyzstan

2021 ◽  
pp. 187936652110292
Author(s):  
Elmira Satybaldieva

This article offers a first person account of women’s mobilization against banking and microfinance sectors in Kyrgyzstan. It focuses on the key factors for the evolution of the anti-debt movement, and women’s political strategies to problematize interest and to denaturalize the discourse of financial inclusion. For many years, the financial industry has operated a gendered process of neoliberal capital accumulation under the guise of empowerment that has produced tensions between transnational capital and marginalized women. Building upon Bourdieusian ideas on social movements, the study shows the significance of strain and situational definition in the formation of the anti-debt mobilization. The article uses in-depth interviews with the leaders and activists of the anti-debt movement and borrowers to explore how gender, class and capital were intertwined. It contributes to the literature on post-Soviet politics by challenging the dominant elite-centered frameworks, which are inadequate to explain local movements and gendered activism.

2018 ◽  
pp. 125-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. M. Drobyshevsky ◽  
P. V. Trunin ◽  
A. V. Bozhechkova

The paper studies the factors of secular stagnation. Key factors of long-term slowdown in economic growth include the slowdown of technological development, aging population, human capital accumulation limits, high public debt, creative destruction process violation etc. The authors analyze key theoretical aspects of long-term stagnation and study the impact of these factors on Japanies economy. The authors conclude that most of the factors have significant influence on the Japanese economy for recent decades, but they cannot explain all dynamics. For Russia, on the contrary, we do not see any grounds for considering the decline in the economy since 2013 as an episode of secular stagnation.


2019 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Toendepi Shonhe

The reinvestment of rural agrarian surplus is driving capital accumulation in Zimbabwe's countryside, providing a scope to foster national (re-) industrialisation and job creation. Contrary to Bernstein's view, the Agrarian Question on capital remains unresolved in Southern Africa. Even though export finance, accessed through contract farming, provides an impetus for export cash crop production, and the government-mediated command agriculture supports food crop production, the reinvestment of proceeds from the sale of agricultural commodities is now driving capital accumulation. Drawing from empirical data, gathered through surveys and in-depth interviews from Hwedza district and Mvurwi farming area in Mazowe district in Zimbabwe, the findings of this study revealed the pre-eminence of the Agrarian Question, linked to an ongoing agrarian transition in Zimbabwe. This agrarian capital elaborates rural-urban interconnections and economic development, following two decades of de-industrialisation in Zimbabwe. 


Author(s):  
Lina Lee ◽  
Mary Lou Maher

Smart environments and the use of interactive technology has the potential to improve the quality of life for the senior community as well as to support the connections among the senior community and the world outside their community. In addition to the increasing number of studies in the field of aging and technologies, research is needed to understand the practical issues of user focus, adoption, and engagement for older adults to accept interactive technologies in their lives. In this study, we use two commercial technological interventions (uDraw and GrandPad) to understand technology-related perceptions and behaviors of older adults. We present five case studies that emerge from empirical observations of initial engagement with technology through research methods such as focus group discussions, in-depth interviews, observations, and diary studies. The contributions of this study are identification of the key factors that influence the initial engagement with interactive technology for older adults.


2021 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-194
Author(s):  
Alin Croitoru

This paper contributes to the growing literature on the diversity of return migration by analysing the different types of small-scale entrepreneurship among returnees. Data from an original survey conducted among Romanian returnees and in-depth interviews with returnees in entrepreneurship are combined to reveal distinct profiles of returnee entrepreneurs and to illustrate their specific ways of thinking about entrepreneurship and migration. Currently, Romania is one of the most fertile settings to research intra-European return migration due to its important flows of temporary international migrants. The paper highlights that there are major differences between business owners and self-employed returnees in terms of entrepreneurship. Returnees who are business owners are those who benefited significantly more from migration than non-entrepreneur returnees—in terms of economic savings, human capital accumulation, and enhancement of their stocks of social capital; while returnees in self-employment reveal no significant differences for these migration outcomes compared to non-entrepreneur returnees. The distinction between the two groups of entrepreneurs has certain implications for origin states’ policies oriented towards stimulating return migration through programmes oriented towards returnees’ entrepreneurship. Keywords: Return Migration; Intra-European Migration; Entrepreneurship; Self-Employment; Multi-Method Social Research. „„„„ Articolul contribuie la literatura dedicată diversității migrației de revenire prin analiza unor tipuri diferite de antreprenoriat în rândul migranților reîntorși în țara de origine. Pentru a documenta profilurile specifice ale migranților care sunt antreprenori după revenire, sunt combinate date culese printr-un sondaj cu migranți reveniți în România și interviuri de profunzime cu migranți care au statutul de antreprenori după revenirea din străinătate. În prezent, România reprezintă unul dintre contextele excelente pentru cercetarea migrației de revenire datorită fluxurilor importante de migranți temporari internaționali. Lucrarea subliniază o serie de diferențe majore între migranții reveniți care au deschis mici afaceri și cei care lucrează pe cont propriu (de exemplu, sub formă de persoană fizică autorizată). Pe de o parte, migranții reveniți care dețin mici afaceri sunt cei care au beneficiat semnificativ mai mult din experiența de migrație comparativ cu reveniții non-antreprenori, în termeni de bani economisiți din migrație, acumulare de capital uman în străinătate și reconfigurarea capitalului social. Pe de altă parte, compararea profilurilor celor care lucrează pe cont propriu cu non-antreprenorii nu arată diferențe semnificative între cele două categorii în termeni de resurse acumulate prin experiența de migrație. Distincția dintre cele două tipuri de antreprenori poate avea implicații pentru politicile statelor de origine orientate către stimularea migrației de revenire prin programe centrate spre antreprenoriatul migranților reveniți. Cuvinte-cheie: migrație de revenire; migrație intra-europeană; antreprenoriat; angajare pe cont propriu; cercetare multi-metodă.


Author(s):  
Joyce Ayikoru Asiimwe

This paper communicates the results of a diagnostic evaluation of the performance of boys and girls in physical sciences at Ordinary level in Uganda after the adoption of the compulsory science policy. The objectives of the study were twofold: to examine the academic performance of boys and girls in the Uganda National Examinations from 2007 to 2010, and to highlight key factors that continue to influence the achievement of students, especially girls in sciences. Data was obtained from five co-educational secondary schools using documentary reviews, in-depth interviews and focus group discussions. The results revealed that the performance of both boys and girls have further declined after the implementation of the compulsory science policy. However, in comparison to the boys, girls in co-educational schools were still more likely to be among the poorest performers in sciences. This was attributed to a number of factors, key among them being girls' self-concept in sciences, and teachers' perception of girls' abilities in sciences. These findings reiterate the need to mainstream gender into both policy design and implementation.


2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 226
Author(s):  
Gabriel Facal ◽  
Gloria Truly Estrelita

Faced with global and systemic crises, neoliberal oriented governments are taking on more authoritarian forms of governance. By using the power of the media, justice, the police, and a set of government technologies, this authoritarian style manifests itself in alternating phases of low-key brutality and crises of ostentatious repression designed to frighten and demoralize opposition social movements. Confronted with these modes of government, the social movements adopt different tactics of mobilization, ranging from direct confrontation to forms of compromise and civil disobedience. With the climate crisis as well as the globalization of social struggles, these movements adopt new political strategies, which question the dichotomy between violence and non-violence. Using a historical and anthropological approach, this paper studies two cases in contemporary Indonesia and France. It shows that the objectives of the groups involved and the national socio-political and cultural background shape the local specificities of these strategies. The comparison, however, reveals similarities at both levels. It shows the persistence and even strengthening of class and oligarchy networks in the implementation of authoritarian-style neoliberal policies. It also points to the respective effectiveness of violent and non-violent tactics in the implementation of militant strategies.


Author(s):  
Emilio Pradilla Cobos ◽  
Felipe de Jesús Moreno Galván ◽  
Ernesto García López

This idea compels the authors, at least, to take a quick look, with limitations by the length of the text, to some of the manifestations of the crisis situation prevailing in the country during the period of imposition of the neoliberal pattern of capital accumulation and to the essential features and the contradictions that it has printed to the great metropolis and national capital. From this outline, in the central part of this work, they analyze the specific characteristics of the social movements and the actions that they have developed in the metropolis, between 2011 and 2018, registered in the Laboratory of Urban Conflicts of the Autonomous Metropolitan University, Unit Xochimilco.


Author(s):  
Khushboo Deepakkumar Bhatt ◽  
Manali Pinank Vin

This chapter proposes the concept of the Grameen Bank initiated by Muhammad Yunus as a prototype for promoting rural entrepreneurship within the under-developed rural community governed by the digital portal. There are many factors that were considered important for the shift from microfinance to financial inclusion when proposing the model. One of the key factors is what is happening with data in general and our ability through digitization to have a more comprehensive understanding of the needs of the poor community. The Grameen model is considered as an advanced empathetic financial service that is appropriate for the needy poor women located in rural locations. By analyzing prior literature on Grameen model, in this chapter, an advancement to the existing Grameen model is proposed.


2020 ◽  
Vol 52 (8) ◽  
pp. 1498-1515 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ali Bhagat ◽  
Leanne Roderick

Fintech and digital financial services involve the delivery of financial products and services through technology. Fintech companies are part of a financial lending infrastructure claiming to offer an alternative to ‘big banks’, and are often touted as digitally disruptive technology that is rapidly reshaping financial inclusion agendas and improving the lives of the poor. For many refugees living in camps and informal settlements in Kenya, fintech is often the only viable option for credit or microfinance aid. While refugees are often excluded from credit, the spread of fintech as a solution for direct peer-to-peer aid transfers from the Global North to refugees has resulted in the uneven distribution of credit access and livelihood support. Through fintech, private citizens and groups in the Global North are able to disrupt and subvert refugee assistance, deeming some worthy of aid while others face ongoing exclusion. While fintech remains a hopeful source of greater efficiency and empowerment, the direct transfer of aid money masks profit and corporate power by only extending assistance to those refugees who are appropriately entrepreneurial, that is to say those who will start small businesses and pay back their loans. This paper argues that processes of financial inclusion carried out by and through fintech are still distinguished largely by exclusion. In so doing, this paper highlights a theoretical position that refugee governance is embedded in racial forms of capital accumulation and expropriation.


Humanomics ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 357-370
Author(s):  
Faried Kurnia Rahman ◽  
Mohammad Ali Tareq ◽  
Rochania Ayu Yunanda ◽  
Akbariah Mahdzir

Purpose The halal industry is one of the most growing industries in the world. It refers to the industry in line with Islamic principles and requirements. The emergence of this industry aims to fulfil the requirement of Islamic-compliant products and services. Surprisingly, the industry has been growing in both Muslim and non-Muslim countries. Assessing the performance of the industry will be notable for ensuring that it obtains its objectives. The proper performance measurement should highlight business perspectives and religious aspects. This study aims to explore the current issues and challenges in developing Maqashid Al-Shari’ah-based performance measurement in the halal industry. Design/methodology/approach This is a qualitative research using in-depth interviews, and uses content analysis to interpret and explain the interview result. Interviews were conducted with experts in Maqashid Al-Shari’ah and Islamic capital markets. Findings The existence of the concept of Maqashid Al-Shari’ah is to create maslahah for all human beings. The development of Maqashid Al-Shari’ah performance measurement for the business is very important. It has only been developed for Islamic financial industry. Unfortunately, it is found that the development of Maqashid Al-Shari’ah performance measurement has not been carried out comprehensively in non-financial industry. The main issue is the absence of the applicable measurements. Therefore, collective decision is required to develop the appropriate measurements. Practical implications There is a necessity for regulator to produce standards on Maqashid Al-Shari’ah-based performance measurement. The government policy plays an important role in the development and implementation of Maqashid Al-Shari’ah -based measurement index. Originality/value This paper highlights the issue of the development of Maqashid Al-Shari’ah -based performance measurement in halal business and commerce which has not much discussed in prior studies.


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