ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book presents the possibilities of a politics of affirmation and hope. It reviews the theoretical and historical foundations of Northern publics' affective engagements with international development, and particularly with microfinance. Affective engagements with international development through microfinance open up spaces of hope that can be filled with critical-constructive knowledge leading to informed practice and meaningful transformations. While anthropological attention is usually on the subjects of hope in the global South, the book shows that the good that everyday humanitarians are trying to create is equally worth our critical attention. The book examines mediated connections between everyday humanitarians in the global North and distant others in the global South. It examines a number of winning photographs of the CGAP Microfinance Photo Contest in the context of the mutations of microfinance.
