Includes bibliographical references and index.

Cover; Half-title page; Title page; Copyright page; Contents; Acknowledgments; Introduction; 1 The global trajectory of microcredit ; The savior-slayer dichotomy; Deploying social relationships for financial ends; Contradictions and controversies; Extrapolating from the evidence from West Bengal; 2 Agency ; Existing approaches; Social deprivation in a context of patriarchy and control; An appositional approach; Gender "habitus"; Strategies of observing agency; Pathways to agency; 3 Converting loans into leverage ; Wives who turned worthy; Brides who bargained; Mired mutinies; Conclusions. 4 The power of participation Self-conscious social awareness; Social interaction; Physical mobility; Domestic power; Civic participation; Conclusions; 5 Microcredit and collective action ; Collective action and sanctioning; Explaining the capacity for collective action; 6 Culture and microcredit: why socio-religious dimensions matter ; "Group styles" in microcredit; In search of explanations; Conclusions; 7 Loans and well-being ; Egalitarian Muslim households; De facto female-headed Muslim households; True female-headed Muslim households; Egalitarian Hindu households. De facto female-headed Hindu householdsTrue female-headed Hindu households; Conclusions; 8 Interpreting microcredit ; Looking beyond the salvation-exploitation dichotomy; 9 Epilogue: the future of microcredit ; Methodological debates and directions; Microcredit's place in policy; Philanthropy, free market, and choices facing microcredit; Appendix; Bibliography; Index.

Credit to Capabilities focuses on the controversial topic of microcredit's impact on women's empowerment and, especially, on the neglected question of how microcredit transforms women's agency. Based on interviews with hundreds of economically and socially vulnerable women from peasant households, this book highlights the role of the associational mechanism - forming women into groups that are embedded in a vast network and providing the opportunity for face-to-face participation in group meetings - in improving women's capabilities. This book reveals the role of microcredit groups in fostering women's social capital, particularly their capacity of organizing collective action for public goods and for protecting women's welfare. It argues that, in the Indian context, microcredit groups are becoming increasingly important in rural civil societies. Throughout, the book maintains an analytical distinction between married women in male-headed households and women in female-headed households in discussing the potentials and the limitations of microcredit's social and economic impacts.