Speaking of Trust: Religion and Mutual Aid in Southwest Kenya

This open access book examines the often overlooked entanglements and affinities between emerging models of formal and informal finance and welfare with longer-running religious structures and concerns.

In Kenya, mutual aid has long mediated microcredit contracts and the social contract between citizens and the state. In effect, mutual aid has been organized in ways that contributed to mistrust in financial and state institutions as well as among families and neighbours. Nevertheless, divers...