This book brings a variety of perspectives—cultural, economic, political, and religious-philosophical—and years of field experience to this study about people who borrow and lend in the interior of Africa. It focuses on the efforts of Luo-speaking people and others in Kenya to make sense of, and cope with, foreign interventions in the form of credit. The book also reveals that contemporary financial aid programs in western Kenya are deeply rooted in colonial and early postcolonial history, and examines how credit begins to appear in the three faces of usury, charity, and fantasy. It notes the ... More

This book brings a variety of perspectives—cultural, economic, political, and religious-philosophical—and years of field experience to this study about people who borrow and lend in the interior of Africa. It focuses on the efforts of Luo-speaking people and others in Kenya to make sense of, and cope with, foreign interventions in the form of credit. The book also reveals that contemporary financial aid programs in western Kenya are deeply rooted in colonial and early postcolonial history, and examines how credit begins to appear in the three faces of usury, charity, and fantasy. It notes the important role of women in Kenyan farming and argues that they should be “adequately represented” as recipients of training and extension. The book discusses the loan repayment under the Integrated Agricultural Development Project and the Smallholder Production Services and Credit Project, and compares the tobacco-growing project of British American Tobacco with government and international aid agencies' projects in Kenya, focusing on the subject of credit and discredit. Its conclusions challenge the conventional wisdom of the past half century (including perennial World Bank orthodoxy) about the need for credit among African farming people.