This pioneering book explores the meaning of the term “Black social economy,” a self-help sector that remains autonomous from the state and business sectors. With the Western Hemisphere’s ignoble history of enslavement and violence towards African peoples, and the strong anti-black racism...

The 2006 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Mohammed Yunus and Grameen Bank confirmed to the industry's advocates that microfinance was a tool to help excluded groups access financing. In my political ethnographic study of 491 people in three countries I show that politics operate throughout the...