The Grameen Bank of Bangladesh opened up an American branch in Jackson Heights, New York. Here’s the agencies blog: Grameen America – Blog.
This is surely a symptom of at least two things:
First, the continued, and perhaps even intensified, traffic in the articulation of neoliberal economic practices and epistemologies between the U.S. and South Asia. While the figuration of the Indian– U.S. IT economy is one gradient, surely the arrival of Bangladesh microcredit in New York City is symptom of another figuration worth attending to.
Second, the extent of dispossession currently unfolding in the U.S. in the wake of subprime mortgage crisis, the U.S. figuration of the credit card maxed indebted subject-citizen, and the financial appropriation of State funds and intergenerational debt financing for the Iraq war.
What will be interesting to see is how the “16 decisions,” a set of rules that guide the comportment of borrowers, is reworked.
