Financializing PovertyMicrofinance is the business of giving small, collateral free loans to poor borrowers that are paid back in frequent intervals with interest. While these for profit microfinance institutions (MFIs) promise social and economic empowerment, they have mainly succeeded at enfolding the poorespecially womeninto the vast circuits of global finance. Financializing Poverty ethnographically examines how the emergence of MFIs has allowed financial institutions