2. The Research Terrain

This chapter analyzes the means by which the Grameen Bank and associated NGOs have obtained informal sovereignty—a phenomenon the author terms, “NGO governmentality.” Under the microfinance revolution, women are portrayed as autonomous entities and savvy entrepreneurs, though the ethnographic studies conducted by the author reveal a more depressing reality. NGOs tend to enforce policies and practices that dictate the financial habits of their clients—usually the desperately poor—and limit what they may or may not do with the money and services they were provided. These organizations also make use of peer pressure and gender roles to manipulate the behaviors of women in order to achieve NGO objectives.