ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates why people take out micro-loans year after year despite the many disadvantages it has for them. It discusses the rural people share vulnerabilities, which can best be described through the concept of insecurity. This concept covers the complexities and constraints in poor people's lives that compel them to join microcredit programmes. A theory of social vulnerability that is related to food insecurity has been drawn from debates about human ecology, expanded entitlements and political economy. The idea of vulnerability is crucial to structuring the discussion of food insecurity in marginal spaces. It is necessary to understand the entitlement systems within which the problem of starvation is to be analysed. Microcredit programmes in the rural area of Bangladesh do not create any new income-generating opportunities nor do they offer any training through which rural people could effectively escape poverty. The heavy dependency on microcredit may limit other options and people's traditional survival strategies.
