A genealogical study of small credit policies in Sri Lanka: development agencies and anthropology of knowledge

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

We aimed to examine the genealogy of micro-credit scheme in Sri Lanka during 1990' s, that is Janasaviya and Smurudhi program. A main question here was why the Grameen Bank model had been selected by most policies in South Asian countries. We attempted to analyze the policy-making process in terms of a particular dynamism of knowledge among development agencies and consultancies in Sri Lanka. It was meant by "a particular dynamism" that knowledge produced by organization tends to converge into a dominant one in a competitive situation or market situation as DiMaggio and Powell (1983) discussed in "The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields".Although we could not complete our analyses during these two years due to too much data gathered, the following two points are made clear:1. Through reading conference documents and interview data on Janasaviya and Samurudhi programs, the convergence of micro-credit policy into the Grameen Bank model were found to be due to a mode of bureaucracy in which most bureaucrats and technocrats were keen interested in keeping a safest 'form' of policy-making for themselves without considering the contents and supposed results.2. Those who were engaged with the policy-making hardly remembered what they discussed with their colleagues on micro-credits. It seems to us that they were concerned with only an empty form of policy as A. Riles (2000) described in The network inside out. This point led us to think about memory of development as discusses in our Report here.As mentioned already, we will continue our analyses of data gathered in this research and publish another report soon.