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Community Matters: A Study of the Interaction of Microcredit Borrowers in Diyarbakır with the Market Economy?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 July 2015

Tuğçe Bulut
Tuğçe Bulut*
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Trinity Hall, Cambridge, CB2 1TJ, UK, tb318@cam.ac.uk
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Abstract

This paper analyzes the processes of integration of the poor into the market, as instigated by their involvement in microfinance projects. This analysis is based on the findings of an ethnographic study of the Turkish Grameen Microcredit Project (TGMP), conducted in Diyarbakır at different time periods between September of 2004 and July of 2005. By analyzing in detail the nature of economic life revolving around the microfinance practices, this paper intends to elucidate the way in which the integration of the microcredit borrowers into the market is guided by societal processes. The findings of the field research show that in everyday practices the borrowers adjust the microfinance system to their own needs and accommodate the economic activities originating in microcredit into their wider social structure. Thus, one can conclude that they are integrated into the market in their own way, guiding the integration process with their own socio-cultural institutions.

Keywords

microfinancepoverty alleviationTurkeymarket integration
Type
Articles
Information
New Perspectives on Turkey , Volume 38: Special Issue on Poverty and Social Exclusion , Spring 2008 , pp. 235 - 265
Copyright
Copyright © New Perspectives on Turkey 2008

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