Author Description

This book is the outcome of Naz?s field study on the role of Nobel Peace Prize winning Grameen Bank?s microcredit programme in changing the life patterns of rural Bangladeshi women. She focussed particularly on a remote south-western rural area in Bangladesh (Monigram union) and explored the impact of microcredit on poor women. This study is a first hand account of Nobel Prize winner Professor Muhammad Yunus? unique Grameen Bank and what it is doing for the rural poor women. Naz in this study has not evaluated Grameen Bank?s policy on loan disbursement; rather she sheds light on the effect of collateral free Grameen microcredit on the daily life patterns of borrower ladies of Monigram who has been treated as chattels in their in-laws? houses and faced tremendous challenges in their already struggled path of development. Empowerment, to Naz, should always be considered in the particular contextual sense and this book offers a new light on the notion of empowerment through which women?s position in any third world country can be assessed. This book will be valuable for those who are interested in women, gender and development studies.