‘Money looks for money’: Managing financialization in eastern Uganda

Jones, Ben and Amongin, Sarah (2023) ‘Money looks for money’: Managing financialization in eastern Uganda. Africa. ISSN 0001-9720 (In Press)

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Abstract

Savings groups are an important feature of life in rural Uganda and elsewhere. They have been celebrated as an ‘alternative’, community-based, approach to economic development with a particular focus on empowering women. In this article we offer a more critical perspective, showing how a savings group in a village in eastern Uganda informs more general experiences of financialization. Joining the group was not really an ‘alternative’ to other forms of finance and was often a first step to securing loans from moneylenders, microfinance institutions and commercial banks. We show how poorer members of the group, typically women, ‘rented out’ their membership to wealthier villagers. Members also used the Friday meetings to socialize and to build political careers, and to reflect critically on experiences of financialization. ‘Money looks for money’, a phrase new to the area, interrogates these socialities and inequalities, as part of the seemingly inexorable pull of loans, interest and financialized debt.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	sdg 1 - no poverty,sdg 5 - gender equality,sdg 8 - decent work and economic growth ,/dk/atira/pure/sustainabledevelopmentgoals/no_poverty
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Social Sciences > School of International Development
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Research Groups > Heritage and History Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Gender and Development Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > The State, Governance and Conflict
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	05 Jul 2023 08:31
Last Modified:	10 Jul 2023 00:27
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/92565
DOI:

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