The social vs. commercial ‘Dingpolitik’ of microlending: Mapping the glocal issue trajectory of a ‘messy object’

Abstract

Microlending (microcredit and microcredit) presents a complex, ‘glocal’ phenomenon meeting social concerns (poverty and community development) versus commercial interests, manifesting a myriad of practices and trends worldwide. This paper elaborates the concept of ‘issue trajectory’, enhanced by topological thinking, to understand the becoming of microlending and to consider possibilities for change. The issue trajectory maps microlending’s proliferation and divergence between 1980 and 2015, using an analytical lens drawing on a combination of the topological dimensions of mutability and mobility and Latour’s Dingpolitik. Using this lens, the study reveals how the continual grounding and proliferation of practices of microlending meet global drives towards standardization and financialization, and how this results in ‘problematization gaps’ between social and commercial aims. Through adaptation as well as confrontation, these gaps bend microlending’s issue trajectory towards new political modalities and publics, and potentially new forms of territorialization.