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DTSTAMP:20100917T160000Z
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CATEGORIES:Academic
DTSTART:20100917T160000Z
DTEND:20100917T170000Z
SUMMARY:Strategic Framing Work(s): How Microcredit Loans Facilitate Anti-Witch Hunt Movements
DESCRIPTION:
 This study looks at how the movement for microcredit 
 loans is being strategically used to mobilize 
 women toward anti-witch hunt campaigns 
 in a tea plantation community in the marginalized 
 Dooars tribal region of India.  Micro 
 credit loans are used in a carefully calculated 
 manner by activists to create a community 
 of women who are viewed as powerful participants 
 in the anti-witch hunt campaign in the area. 
 Economic ties create social capacity that 
 is intentionally directed toward mobilization 
 for social change. Specifically, we focus on 
 the following problem: How does a movement 
 cohere and persist in pursuing two very disparate 
 goals? Why would women, who participate 
 in the non-contentious and low risk micro-credit 
 schemes for improving the livelihood of their 
 individual households, be motivated enough 
 to undertake the risks and social costs associated 
 with mobilizing against witch hunts 
 that are spearheaded by men, and in which powerful 
 social and political forces in the community 
 are often complicit? Also, the tea plantation 
 is in a community with a long standing 
 tradition of witch hunts. This is fueled by 
 local beliefs in the existence of witches, the 
 divining powers of the witch doctor, and the 
 desperate need of impoverished and illiterate 
 individuals to make sense of mysterious, often 
 life-threatening ailments that are commonplace 
 given the lack of medical facilities. 
 Our findings suggest that the women not only 
 continued to coalesce around the micro-credit 
 enterprise, they also participated in the anti-witch 
 hunt campaign. While they have not always 
 been able to collectively rally to save 
 the women accused as "witches", they have intervened 
 in many instances to produce some remarkable 
 victories for the movement.\n\n
 Price: free\n
 Sponsor: Asian Studies Center\n
 Sponsor's Homepage: http://asianstudies.msu.edu\n
 Contact phone: 517-353-1680\n
LOCATION:201 International Center
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