Disciplinary Technologies of Microfinance: Fictitious Proximity, Visibility and Surveillance in Rural Microfinance in Bangladesh

Abstract In this paper, I delve into governmental and disciplinary technologies in microfinance practice. I aim to reveal the disciplinary and governmental powers that guarantee proper repayment of debt in state- and NGO-sponsored microfinance programmes. Using Foucault’s notion of conduct of conduct, I uncover how loan officers consistently maintain meticulous control over borrowers and assure a docility-utility relationship. Based on seven months of fieldwork on rural microfinance in the North-eastern part of Bangladesh, I reveal the strategic relationship of loan officers and borrowers, the loan officers’ techniques of recording and reporting borrowers, the methods of differentiating good and bad borrowers, the practices of putting special attention on particular borrowers, and surveillance processes over borrowers’ family and economic activities. While microfinance programmes are repeatedly hailed as an effective measure of development policy, this empirical research in Bangladesh arrives at a different result: A high extent of governing and disciplinary behaviours are present in microfinance programmes. As a result, financial success is ensured through proper debt repayments.