Dialectic of Control and Emancipation in Organizing for Social Change: A Multitheoretic Study of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh

In recent years, the Grameen (rural) Bank of Bangladesh gained international fame for successfully organizing grassroots microenterprises for productive self-employment and social change. The Grameen Bank provides collateral-free loans and various social services for the poor, charging 20% interest on capital2 and yet maintaining a 99% loan recovery rate. Many of the bank's 1.9 million members, of whom 94% are women, attribute their present well-being to its ameliorative qualities. Using multiple theories (coorientation, concertive control, and critical feminist theories), we analyze the Grameen Bank's programs to explicate the dialectic between control and emancipation in organizing for social change. By examining the Grameen Bank's organizational processes from multiple theoretical perspectives, we draw insights about theory and praxis in organizing for social…