COVID-19 and the Unequalizing Infrastructures of Financial Inclusion in Tamil Nadu.

Isabelle Guérin,Vincent Guermond,Govindan Venkatasubramanian,Nithya Joseph,Nithya Natarajan

doi:10.1111/dech.12674

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article discusses the impact of the COVID‐19 pandemic on microfinance borrowers in Tamil Nadu, India. Through an examination of the social and financial infrastructures underpinning inclusive finance, the article demonstrates how the COVID‐19 pandemic exposes the limits and exclusionary tendencies of the for‐profit financial inclusion industry. The unequalizing breakdown of financial inclusion infrastructures during the pandemic prioritizes future revenue extraction over current livelihood needs, throwing hard‐hit borrowers back on hierarchical informal financial and social infrastructures to cope with COVID‐19‐induced risk. Tracing the experiences of poor microfinance borrowers in Tamil Nadu, this article examines how COVID‐19 is reshaping inclusive financial infrastructures in ways that reveal the dynamics of exclusion at the heart of financial inclusion.

Highlights

The anxiety about my debt has made me sick
In investigating the politics behind financial inclusion infrastructure, we suggest that the breakdown of inclusion in India during the crisis constitutes an uneven and exclusionary phenomenon, with access to liquidity running dry for the most severely impacted whilst demands for repayment remain significant
In conceptualizing financial inclusion infrastructure as a means by which capital is able to capture future labour among the working poor, we ask: what happens when there is an increase in uncertainty over that future labour? We find that forms of relief that are rolled out through financial inclusion channels, both Self

Summary

Introduction

The anxiety about my debt has made me sick. My heartbeat has risen but I didn't go to the hospital yet. Granting these groups access to forms of credit that would normally be inaccessible, SHG constituted a social infrastructure of financial inclusion that became legible to formal finance.

Results

Conclusion