ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the process through which bank workers recruit and organize women borrowers in the study village. Since the 1970s, academics and gender-sensitive development workers from the North and the South have raised concerns about “equitable development,” that is, bringing women into development as equal partners. The recruitment process illustrates both the public transcript—philosophy and objectives of the Grameen Bank—and the hidden transcripts—covert discourse of members and bank workers. The use of women’s position to attain institutional interests and the interests of men reaffirms the hegemony in society. The Grameen Bank is the first lending institution in Bangladesh to substitute social collateral for material collateral in its lending among rural poor people. In addition to the formal networks between bank workers and influential members, the women borrowers in the center maintain informal social and economic networks among themselves. Such shifts in program agendas are also reported from other microlending institutions in Bangladesh.
