Credit between cultures : farmers, financiers, and misunderstanding in Africa / Parker Shipton.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Shipton, Parker MacDonald.

Series:

Yale agrarian studies.

Yale agrarian studies series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Economic assistance--Africa.

Economic assistance.

Poverty--Africa--Prevention.

Poverty.

Luo (Kenyan and Tanzanian people)--Finance.

Luo (Kenyan and Tanzanian people).

Luo (Kenyan and Tanzanian people)--Economic conditions.

Economics--Sociological aspects.

Economics.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (1 online resource (xxvii, 335 p., [12] p. of plates) ) ill., map.

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New Haven [Conn.] : Yale University Press, c2010.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Parker Shipton brings a variety of perspectives-cultural, economic, political, and religious-philosophical-and years of field experience to this fascinating study about people who borrow and lend in the interior of Africa. His conclusions challenge the conventional wisdom of the past half century (including perennial World Bank orthodoxy) about the need for credit among African farming people.

Contents:

Introduction: a golden pendulum

Context for credit : a setting at the source of the Nile

Three faces of the loan : charity, usury

and fantasy

Plans and dreams : an integrated approach on paper

Lenders and lineages : nepotism as loyalty

Untying a package deal : borrowing green revolution technology

Debts and dodges : the moral and the hazard in repayment

In a white elephant's shadow : reversal and repetition

Wildfire : tobacco contract farming

Self-help and the underground : individual incentive and the group guarantee

Self-help with help : banking between charity and usury

Crossing back : rethinking credit between cultures.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references (p. [299]-320) and index.

ISBN:

9780300162929

0300162928

OCLC:

1059279146