Abstract

GALARZA, Bárbara. Between standard solidarity and renegotiated solidarity: (re)presentations of debts in an Argentinean microcredit program. Etnográfica [online]. 2019, vol.23, n.3, pp.557-578. ISSN 0873-6561.  https://doi.org/10.4000/etnografica.7170.

This article seeks to analyze, from an ethnographic point of view, the local dynamics in an Argentinean microcredit program administered by the national government in the Pampean region during the first decade of the 21^st century. The study of interpersonal relationships between promoters and beneficiaries shows that microcredit dynamics develops through practices of both giving-receiving-returning and keeping-rejecting-to-give-back. This is because beneficiaries evaluate the time given to the program as a substitute for the credit they are required to reimburse. I assert that these practices do not make up opposing logics but relational dynamics that motivate a renegotiation of the terms of exchange. The study shows that some cases and events that are considered “failures” from the point of view of the promoters of the program are experienced as mutual aid practices from the point of view of beneficiaries. By contrasting these perspectives regarding solidarity, I intend to show that “failures” in the program are also the expression of a native form of valorization based on the exchange of time for money.

Keywords : solidarity; don; microcredit; ethnography.

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