IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ris/joeasd/0010.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Women's Social Capital and Social Cohesion in Kerala: The Case of Kudumbashree

Author

Listed:
  • Sheetal, Bhoola

    (The University of Zululand)

  • Dasarath, Chetty

    (Durban University of Technology)

  • Jos, Chathukulam

    (The Centre of Rural Management)

  • Nolwazi, Ngcobo

    (The University of KwaZulu-Natal)

  • John, Moolakkattu

    (Mahatma Gandhi University)

Abstract

This paper examines the claim that the Kudumbashree women of Kerala, built around microfinance but now a key actor in Kerala’s economic, social, and welfare landscape, constitute a form of social capital and contributes to social cohesion. The study is based on desk research based on the existing studies supplemented by interviews with key informants and focus group discussions. An overview of Kerala’s society and politics, the rise of inclusive neighbourhood movements as precursors of the Kudumbashree and the functions that the poverty-focused and state-initiated Kudumbashree women’s program is discussed. It then discusses the communal situation in Kerala and how stiff competition between the dominant communities have operated without violence and how the sporadic communal conflicts are contained through accommodation and public disapproval. It then concludes with a critical assessment of the role of Kudumbashree as a form of social capital primarily and as a force for social cohesion.

Suggested Citation

  • Sheetal, Bhoola & Dasarath, Chetty & Jos, Chathukulam & Nolwazi, Ngcobo & John, Moolakkattu, 2024. "Women's Social Capital and Social Cohesion in Kerala: The Case of Kudumbashree," Journal of Economic and Social Development, Clinical Journals Press, vol. 11(02), pages 01-12, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:ris:joeasd:0010
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.jesd-online.com/articles/womens-social-capital-and-social-cohesion-in-kerala-the-case-of-kudumbashree.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Katherine Rankin, 2002. "Social Capital, Microfinance, and the Politics of Development," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(1), pages 1-24.
    2. Glyn Williams & Binitha V. Thampi & D. Narayana & Sailaja Nandigama & Dwaipayan Bhattacharyya, 2011. "Performing Participatory Citizenship -- Politics and Power in Kerala's Kudumbashree Programme," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(8), pages 1261-1280, July.
    3. Woolcock, Michael & Narayan, Deepa, 2000. "Social Capital: Implications for Development Theory, Research, and Policy," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 15(2), pages 225-249, August.
    4. Chathukulam, Jos & Tharamangalam, Joseph, 2021. "The Kerala model in the time of COVID19: Rethinking state, society and democracy," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    5. Kadiyala, Suneetha, 2004. "Scaling up Kudumbashree collective action for poverty alleviation and women's empowerment," FCND briefs 180, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    6. Luca Andriani & Asimina Christoforou, 2016. "Social Capital: A Roadmap of Theoretical and Empirical Contributions and Limitations," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(1), pages 4-22, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. repec:spr:epolit:v:39:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1007_s40888-021-00249-1 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Zhang, Yanlong & Zhou, Xiaoyu & Lei, Wei, 2017. "Social Capital and Its Contingent Value in Poverty Reduction: Evidence from Western China," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 350-361.
    3. Togba, Edith Leadaut, 2012. "Microfinance and households access to credit: Evidence from Côte d’Ivoire," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 23(4), pages 473-486.
    4. N. Rajagopal, 2020. "Social Impact of Women SHGs: A Study of NHGs of ‘Kudumbashree’ in Kerala," Management and Labour Studies, XLRI Jamshedpur, School of Business Management & Human Resources, vol. 45(3), pages 317-336, August.
    5. Stuart, Guy, 2006. "Caste Embeddedness and Microfinance: Savings and Credit Cooperatives in Andhra Pradesh, India," Working Paper Series rwp06-037, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    6. J. Devika, 2016. "The ‘Kudumbashree Woman’ and the Kerala Model Woman: Women and Politics in Contemporary Kerala," Indian Journal of Gender Studies, Centre for Women's Development Studies, vol. 23(3), pages 393-414, October.
    7. Paul Mosley & Daniela Olejarova & Elena Alexeeva, 2004. "Microfinance, social capital formation and political development in Russia and eastern Europe: a pilot study of programmes in Russia, Slovakia and Romania," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 16(3), pages 407-427.
    8. Esayas Bekele Geleta, 2014. "Social Capital as Collateral: Banking on the Poor," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 73(1), pages 108-125, January.
    9. Hanrahan, Kelsey B., 2015. "Living Care-Fully: The Potential for an Ethics of Care in Livelihoods Approaches," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 381-393.
    10. Challapalli Praseeda, 2018. "Socially Responsible Investment, Microfinance and Banking: Creating Value by Synergy," Indian Journal of Corporate Governance, , vol. 11(1), pages 69-87, June.
    11. Beard, Victoria A., 2007. "Household Contributions to Community Development in Indonesia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 607-625, April.
    12. Michael Weiler & Oliver Hinz, 2019. "Without each other, we have nothing: a state-of-the-art analysis on how to operationalize social capital," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 13(5), pages 1003-1035, November.
    13. Mahto, Raj V. & Belousova, Olga & Ahluwalia, Saurabh, 2020. "Abundance – A new window on how disruptive innovation occurs," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 155(C).
    14. Giuseppina Guagnano & Elisabetta Santarelli & Isabella Santini, 2016. "Can Social Capital Affect Subjective Poverty in Europe? An Empirical Analysis Based on a Generalized Ordered Logit Model," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 128(2), pages 881-907, September.
    15. Mavis Dako-Gyeke & Razak Oduro, 2013. "Effects of Household Size on Cash Transfer Utilization for Orphans and Vulnerable Children in Rural Ghana," Academic Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies, Richtmann Publishing Ltd, vol. 2, March.
    16. Hong Sun & Valentina Hartarska & Lezhu Zhang & Denis Nadolnyak, 2018. "The Influence of Social Capital on Farm Household’s Borrowing Behavior in Rural China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(12), pages 1-20, November.
    17. Md Aslam Mia & V. G. R. Chandran, 2016. "Measuring Financial and Social Outreach Productivity of Microfinance Institutions in Bangladesh," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 127(2), pages 505-527, June.
    18. Blocker, Christopher P. & Ruth, Julie A. & Sridharan, Srinivas & Beckwith, Colin & Ekici, Ahmet & Goudie-Hutton, Martina & Rosa, José Antonio & Saatcioglu, Bige & Talukdar, Debabrata & Trujillo, Carlo, 2013. "Understanding poverty and promoting poverty alleviation through transformative consumer research," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 66(8), pages 1195-1202.
    19. Grootaert, Christiaan, 1999. "Social capital, houshold welfare, and poverty in Indonesia," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2148, The World Bank.
    20. Dufhues, Thomas & Buchenrieder, Gertrud & Munkung, Nuchanata, 2012. "Individual social capital and access to formal credit in Thailand," 2012 Conference, August 18-24, 2012, Foz do Iguacu, Brazil 123401, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    21. Alair Ferreira de Freitas, 2024. "Cooperativism and its role in promoting sustainable food systems in Portuguese speaking countries," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(3), pages 1665-1677, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Women; Kerala; Kudumbashree; Social Capital; Social Cohesion;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • A11 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Role of Economics; Role of Economists

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ris:joeasd:0010. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Marijan Cingula (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.eclinicalsci.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.