This recent article from The Hindu titled ‘The makings of a debt trap in Andhra PradeshThe makings of a debt trap in Andhra Pradesh” describes the debt collection practices of micro-finance institutions (MFIs) as ‘barbaric’ and suggests that something like 60 people have committed suicide because of inability to repay MFI debt.

Whether or not the claims in the article are true, I think it illustrates a fantastic point: the perception of a thing is at least as important as the thing itself. We could make arguments all day about whether micro-finance is a good model, but whether it’s ‘good’ or not will be irrelevent in situations where people reject it because of the perception that it’s ‘barbaric’ and in general no better than traditional lending.

Managing this kind of perception is a tricky business, but as Jean Lave pointed out so wisely in her seminar yesterday, our duty as anthropologists should be to understand a thing first before we try to change it. We shouldn’t be in a hurry to skip to the change part. I’d say that lesson holds true for other disciplines as well, particularly development.