Transcript The Mararikulam Experiment: - Montclair State University

The Mararikulam
Experiment:
An Alternative to
Corporate Dominated
Globalization
The Mararikulam
Experiment
A Powerpoint Presentation
by
Richard W. Franke
Professor of Anthropology
Montclair State University
The Mararikulam
Experiment
For detailed background information
and for updates check regularly at
the Mararikulam website:
http://www.mararidevelopment.org
What Is the Mararikulam
Experiment?
It is one of the most important recent
attempts to create a practical alternative
to corporate dominated globalization and
to develop the tools to create a world
based more on social justice than on "free
trade" and profit.
What Is the Mararikulam
Experiment?
The Mararikulam Experiment is based
on idealism but it is designed to meet the
practical realities of our present-day
world.
What Is the Mararikulam
Experiment?
It builds on decades of social justice
struggles in India's Kerala State and
carries them forward in Mahatma
Gandhi's spirit of self-reliance and in the
beliefs of all the activists and revolutionaries who have dreamed of and acted to
make a better world.
What Is the Mararikulam
Experiment?
The Mararikulam experiment consists of an integrated set
of projects designed to make substantial reductions in
poverty in the eight villages and two towns of the Aryad
and Kanjikuzhy development blocks in the central coastal
region of Kerala State, India, over the years of 2002 to
2005. The projects take the well-established approach of
job creation through microcredit – a Kerala variant of the
Grameen Bank experiment in Bangladesh that has
justifiably attracted international attention and acclaim.
Outline of This Presentation
In this powerpoint presentation we shall:
1. Describe the Mararikulam area
2. Review the Kerala Model of
development
3. Give a detailed picture of the plans
and activities at Mararikulam
4. Explain why Mararikulam is so
important in our world today
1. The Mararikulam Area
Where Is Mararikulam?
Mararikulam is a state
assembly constituency in
central Kerala.
Kerala is a state on the
southwest coast of India.
2. The Kerala Model
The Kerala Model
Kerala is already well known in development circles
for the “Kerala Model,” a set of achievements in
health, education, and material quality of life nearly
equal to those of the rich industrial nations. The next
slide shows some of Kerala’s achievements...
The Kerala Model
Quality of Life Indicators, 2000–2001
Indicator
Per capita GNP ($)
At PPPd ($)
Adult literacy rate (%)
Life expectancy in yearse
Malesf
Femalesf
Infant mortality per 1,000
Birth rate per 1,000
Low-Income
Countriesa
United
States
Kerala
India
566b
2,943
91c
460
2,390
44
420
1,990
39
34,260
34,260
96
63
64
65
29
59e
74
80
7
16
68
74
12
17
80
40
Sources: Kerala State Planning Board Economic Review, 1999, 2000, and 2001; Indian Census of 1991; World Bank
Report for 2002:232–33; UNDP Report for 2002.
Where Is Mararikulam?
Mararikulam is part of
Alappuzha District, one of
the traditional bastions of
Kerala’s activist leftwing
culture.
Where Is Mararikulam?
The 8 villages of
Mararikulam lie
along both sides of
India’s National
Highway 47 on a
narrow penninsula of
low-lying sandy soils.
The Name Mararikulam
The word “kulam” means “pond” in Malayalam, the
language of Kerala. Most Hindu temples have large
ponds where people bathe, and wash clothes, cows,
and elephants. The “mar” comes from “mavan,”
meaning “satan,” while the “ari” derives from
“harikuga” meaning “to kill.”
The Name Mararikulam
According to the story,
Siva came upon a devil (a
“mavan”) and killed
(“hari”) him. Then he
washed the blood off himself in a pond (“kulam”) in
the present day village of
Mararikulam South.
The Name Mararikulam
Today an
important Hindu
temple
stands
next to
the Marari
pond.
Mararikulam’s Ecology
Mararikulam
covers 17,059
hectares or 170.59
sq km on which
272,000 people
lived in 2001. 80%
of the cultivated
land is devoted to
coconut trees and
10% for rice.
Mararikulam’s Ecology
Coconut trees
grow well in the
sandy soil and the
thousands of small
ponds provide
water for the trees
throughout the
year.
Mararikulam’s Ecology
10% of the population
engages in fishing for
a living while 45%
manu-facture
products from the
coconut tree
including coir, or
coconut husk fiber.
Coir Mats
Door mats, ship
ropes, and other
coir products have
been popular in the
West for more than
200 years. British
businessmen made
fortunes off Kerala
coir mats and
ropes.
Coir Mats
Today college
football team mats
are pro-duced in
Mar-arikulam for the
US mar-ket. Of the
$28–$34 retail price,
about $1 goes to the
workers pro-ducing
the coir and weav-ing
the mat.
Making Coir Mats
From coconut husk to coir mat is
a long and tedious process
documented with photos on the
Mararikulam web site. After the
fiber has been twisted into yarn,
wound, dyed, and beamed (set for
the loom), weaving becomes the
final process.
To view a photo essay on coir
manufacture, go to:
http://chss.montclair.edu/anthro/coir.htm
Mararikulam’s Ecology
The fish catch
depends on the
“chakara,” a word with
two meanings:
1. A mud reef about 5
miles out to sea where
the fish gather at a
certain time of
year…and
Mararikulam’s Ecology
2. The “chakara” is also a
time of year for great
fish, shrimp, and mussel
catches and the only
time poor fishing
households have enough
surplus for celebrations.
The Chakara and Chemmeen
The great chakara shrimp catch
along the Mararikulam coast
provides the backdrop for one
of the greatest Malayalam
novels, Chemmeen (Shrimp),
by Thakazhi S. Pillai.
The Chakara and Chemmeen
The young Muslim
shrimp trader
Pareekutti, falls in love
with the voluptuous
Karuthamma, a Hindu
fishing caste girl with
whom he has played
on the beach since
childhood.
The Chakara and
Chemmeen
The ardent lovers are
denied their dreams
by a web of caste and
gender oppression
enforced by the
beliefs of the fishing
community in the
need for female
chastity and caste
purity.
The Chakara and Chemmeen
Going out in small
boats on the dangerous
waters off
Mararikulam, they
believe that only when
traditions are obeyed
to the last detail can
they hope for a good
chakara.
The Chakara and Chemmeen
The novel’s spectacular
final scene recalls both
Shakespeare’s Romeo
and Juliet and The
Tempest as the
chakara sea becomes
the final arbiter of
sexual passion.
Mararikulam’s Ecology
Karappuram –
land and people by
P. V. Aniyan, Prof. C. V.
Natarajan, and K. R.
Bhageeradhan,
and
Integrated Coastal Zone
Management Action
Plan of Mararikulam by
Srikumar Chattopadhyay
Detailed de-scriptions of
the local ecology can be
found in two papers on
the Mararikulam web
site:
http://www.mararidevelopment.org
3. The Mararikulam Experiment
Details of the Project
What Is The Mararikulam
Experiment?
The two key words in the Mararikulam
Experiment are:
• Integrated
• Microcredit
What Is Integrated Development?
The Mararikulam Experiment is called
“integrated” development because the projects
cover all areas of life, not just job creation,
irrigation, health, or some other aspect.
What Is Integrated Development?
In Mararikulam, this means...
What Is Integrated Development?
• Job creation through microcredit
• Use of local resources (also called “backward
linkages”)
• Selling to local markets (also called “forward linkages”
• Improving health
• Improving nutrition
• Environmental Improvements...
What Is Integrated Development?
• Technological innovation
• Democratic activism and participation
• Equality and fairness (not just profits and
growth) . . . and
• Women’s empowerment
What Is Integrated
Development?
Let’s look at each of these
components of the Mararikulam
Experiment
Microcredit
Mircrocredit originated
with the now famous
“grameen bank”
(grameen means
“village” in Bengali),
invented in 1976 by a
Bangladesh economics
professor named
Muhammed Yunus.
Microcredit refers to the practice
of lending small amounts –
usually less than $50 – to lowincome households that would not
otherwise qualify for credit
because they have no collateral.
The Grameen Bank
With private lender interest rates
at 200%, the Grameen Bank loans
at 25% attracted poor households
with the hope of avoiding
permanent debt – and of using
borrowed funds to make their
lives better.
The Grameen Bank
lends small amounts
mostly to women who
form borrower groups of
5 individuals. No
member of the group
can get a 2nd loan until
all 5 have repaid their
first loan.
The Grameen Bank
The Grameen Bank
strategy led to 90%+
payback rates and made
microcredit into one of the
buzzwords of international
development. By 1999, 56
countries had microcredit
programs aimed at 24
million poor households.
But international emphasis on
payback rates may have covered
over serious defects in the
Grameen Bank’s great potential as
a vehicle for em-powerment of
poor women and their ability to
lift their households out of
poverty.
The Grameen Bank
Anthropologist Aminur
Rahman found that
women in one Bangladesh village were subject
to the control of a male
bank bureaucracy.
Loans were often used to
repay previous loans.
The high payback rates
were concealing...
The Grameen Bank
…verbal and physical
abuse by husbands,
brothers, and bank
officials; 70% of loans
were used for purposes
other than what
appeared on the bank
sheets; and households
were not emerging out of
poverty.
Contrary to the group repayment
setup, the borrowers faced the
larger society and economy
effectively as individuals powerless
to do much with their microloans
except to spend on what their
male household members dictated.
Microcredit at Mararikulam
The Mararikulam
Experiment takes into
consideration the
failures of the
Bangladesh Grameen
Bank – and has a
strategy to correct them.
By 2001 Mararikulam had 1,350
women’s neighborhood groups –
NHGs – each with 10 to 40
members. Each NHG meets every
Sunday afternoon to discuss
matters of local neighborhood
importance, and to collect “thrift.”
Microcredit at Mararikulam
The meetings have
high participation
rates and
involvement. They
reflect the activism
and civic interest
common in Kerala.
Microcredit at
Mararikulam
These NHGs were
formed as part of
the Kerala
People’s Campaign
for Decentralized
and Democratic
Development that
ran from 1996 to
2001.
Microcredit at Mararikulam
In a survey of 101 NHG
households, 77% reported incomes
of less than Rs 1,200 per month,
or, about $0.82 per day.
This makes them officially part of
the World Bank’s “poorest of the
poor.”
Data for 798 of these
groups show that in 2001
the women saved 5.4
million rupees, or about
$6.94 per person per
year in “thrift” accounts.
The survey also
found that 75% used
loans from the
microcredit funds for
medical emergencies
Microcredit at Mararikulam
To reduce health costs
and free up funds for
investment in jobs, the
project includes a health
component aimed at the
most common health
problems that are
impacting the loangenerating capacity of
the microcredit groups.
A follow-up survey in June of
2002 found for 1,132 NHGs thrift
deposits of nearly Rs 15 million
and per person deposits of Rs 630
or $13.40. Linked to local
cooperative banks, the NHGs had
lent out Rs 26.7 million of which
69% had been fully repaid.
Microcredit at Mararikulam
In other words, the microcredit at
Mararikulam was starting to cycle
rupees through the local economy
— just what is needed to
stimulate local economic growth.
But this still leaves the
problem of job creation
unsolved...
Microcredit at Mararikulam
Each NHG is slated to
become a local cooperative production unit, a
business owned by the
NHG members themselves. 16 units have
already started making
soap. We shall illustrate
the features of the
experiment with the soap
cooperatives.
Here is where the microcredit
innovations at Mararikulam come
in.
Instead of a male dominated bank
bureaucracy, the women NHGs
themselves manage the loans.
Maari Soap
Using their
collected thrift
and funds from
the people’s
campaign, 160
women now
manufacture soap
in their
neighborhoods.
Maari Soap
Soap is 90%
coconut oil which
“sapon-ifies,” when
mixed with sodium hydroxide,
also known as
caustic soda. Scent
and coloring
agents require only
small amounts of
chemicals.
Maari Soap
In 1 hour a mold
of 20 bars can
be made. At
peak production,
each unit of 10
women will
produce 600
bars per day...
Maari Soap
...leading to a profit of
1,500 rupees per person
per month on average,
that is, about $1.06 per
day, more than
doubling their current
income of $0.82 per
day or less.
Maari Soap
But how can planners be
sure 16 NHGs can sell
600 bars of soap daily in
the local market?
Here is where the “integrated”
comes in…and combines with the
leftist heritage of the area.
Maari Soap
The production units
make soap 5 days a week
and on Saturday they go
house to house in their
neighborhoods to sell the
bars made during the
week.
1. The Maari Soap is of a quality
equal to other brands;
2. It is 10% to 30% cheaper
because no packaging or
advertising are needed…and most
importantly...
Maari Soap
The multiplier effect refers to the
fact that a rupee circulating
through the local economy
multiplies its value because each
use generates income for
someone…as contrasted with a big
company where the sale sends the
money to another –possibly
faraway – location.
The Mararikulam NHGs
are politically conscious
of the importance of
using the soap made by
their neighbors to raise
the incomes and also to
generate economic
development through the
“multiplier effect.”
Maari Soap
But the Kerala activist tradition is to create big public events
that solidify the political education generated by people’s
movements.
So, on May 11 2002, 30,000 NHG members congregated at the soccer field of St.
Michael’s College...
Where they took
the Maari Soap
pledge as a public
act of resistance to
corporatedominated
globalization and an
affirmation of the
self-reliance concept
of Mahatma
Gandhi.
Led by feminist
novelist Sara Joseph,
they pledged...“to
use only Maari
soap…
[and to] create a
new model of
sustainable
development.”
The full text of their pledge is available in both English and Malayalam at
http://www.mararidevelopment.org
The energy generated by this high-profile event was felt all across Kerala. Representatives
from the International Labour Organization (ILO) were so impressed that they
agreed to fund
part of the
project if the
organiz-ers
would write a
study the ILO
could use to
inspire others.
The Mararikulam Project Design
But even if the soap
enterprises are wildly
successful, how will the
other tens of thousands
of households get out of
poverty?
Along with the soap, other NHGs
are set to manufacture–
• umbrellas
• school notebooks
• school supply kits
and...
The Mararikulam Project Design
Ready-to-cook...
•
•
•
•
vegetables
fish
shrimp
mussels
These items will be sold
• locally
• regionally
and maybe internationally
How Will It Work?
Hundreds of NHGs will be
organized as small cooperatives,
owned by their members.
The NHG cooperatives in turn will
jointly own a large central
cooperative that will purchase raw
materials in bulk and insure
quality and outside marketing.
Each of the 8 villages will
have 2 “common facility
centers” where raw
materials can be stored
and where quality control
can be managed.
The NHGs will collect
inputs and market nonlocal products through
these centers.
How Will It Work?
The common facilities centers will
utilize environmentally advanced
features such as rainwater
harvesting and low-impact
construction techniques.
Rainwater harvesting
was invented during the
people’s campaign and
uses roof runoff to big
tanks where water is
held. This is important
in Mararikulam where
the water table is high,
but saltwater intrusion is
common.
How Will It Work?
Beach improvement and
fishing zone management
projects are underway; pond
renovation and cleaning of
local canals will be
supplemented by the use of
town garbage as fertilizer
after treatment with a worm
process that causes rapid
decay of waste into usable
fertilizer.
The increased demand for coconut
oil (for the soap), vegetables, and
fish, will stimulate pro-duction,
employment (multipliers), and
envir-onmental renovation to
insure a steady supply of inputs
for the new enterprises.
How Will It Work?
The large central cooperative will
hire professional managers and
technical staff as needed to insure
that the products can compete in
regional and overseas markets. But
the products will be sold as “fair
trade,” intended to appeal to
idealistic customers outside
Mararikulam.
Where Pareekutti once
loved Karuthamma the
shrimp catch will increase.
The women’s cooperatives will prepare and pack
it — along with the
increased fish catch — to
raise their families out of
poverty.
How Will It Work?
The startup capital will
be raised from –
• the NHG thrift funds
• local funds from the
people’s campaign
• individual household
members
Like the soap locally, outside
consumers of vegetable chips,
curry sauces, and packaged fish,
shrimp, and mussels will be asked
to become loyal to brands that
promote a better world, not just a
cheap product.
How Will It Work?
In November 2002 construction
began on the first common
facilities center for soap in the
village of Mararikulam South. The
village donated the land and a
building; central government
funds will construct the other
buildings.
Infrastructure has been
developed by –
• ILO funds
• UNDP funds
• Indian government
funds
• local government funds
4. Mararikulam:
The International Significance
Mararikulam: The
International Significance
Why should all this development activity
at Mararikulam be of interest to those of
us who do not live there?
Let us go back to the 4th slide in this
presentation...
What Is the Mararikulam
Experiment?
It is one of the most important recent
attempts to create a practical alternative
to corporate dominated globalization and
to develop the tools to create a world
based more on social justice than on "free
trade" and profit.
What Is Globalization?
Globalization refers in general to the increasingly close
ties among all peoples and cultures, brought about by
the rapid advances in technology, especially travel and
communications.
What Is Globalization?
Globalization could mean increasing ties of friendship,
solidarity, cooperation, mutual assistance, good will,
exchange, and peace among all the peoples of the
world.
What Is Globalization?
But globalization at present is mostly of a
different type. It can best be called “corporate
dominated globalization.”
What Is Corporate Dominated
Globalization?
What Is Corporate Dominated
Globalization?
It means “free trade,” the
unrestricted (or nearly
unrestricted) flow of investment
capital and unrestricted
markets…which all sound either
good or at least neutral until we
consider two important facts...
1. Labor – working
people – does not and
can never have the same
mobility as capital
...and...
2. The starting point for
“free trade” is a world of
massive inequality.
What Is Corporate Dominated
Globalization?
Cornell University
sociologist Philip
McMichael has analyzed
the historical
development of
corporate dominated
globalization.
What Is Corporate Dominated
Globalization?
He traces its origins to the 1970s when US and European banks
filled with petro-dollars from the sudden rise in oil prices.
The banks engaged in an avalanche of unregulated lending to
third world governments whose often corrupt leaders accepted
loans they could not ever repay.
What Is Corporate Dominated
Globalization?
As these notes came due in the 1980s, the World Bank, and
especially the IMF (International Monetary Fund) took on the
role of enforcers, demanding what came to be called Structural
Adjustment Programs (SAPs) in order for countries to get new
loans to pay back the old ones.
What Is Corporate Dominated
Globalization?
University of Massachusetts
economist Arthur MacEwan
argues that SAPs are “designed
quite explicitly to bring a
recession.”
What Is Corporate Dominated
Globalization?
And Joseph Stiglitz claims the IMF
demands “austerity,” and
“contraction,” [ie recessions] just
when most countries need
expansionary or growth oriented
policies. While developing
countries are harmed by IMF
policies, first world corporations
benefit.
Here’s Why
Structural Adjustment
Programs typically
require:
• reduced government
spending, even for education
and health:
• wage freezes or cuts
• privatizing of public
enterprises;
• liberalizing of import-export
controls, that is, “free trade;”
• opening the economy to
foreign investment
SAPs and Instability
SAPs often lead to riots and
deaths as people resist the
attacks on their standard of
living that result from SAPs.
In the year 2000 for
example major anti-SAP
riots took place in..
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Argentina
Bolivia
Brazil
Colombia
Costa Rica
Ecuador
Honduras
Kenya
Malawi
Nigeria
Paraguay
South Africa
Zambia
SAPs and Instability
In Zimbabwe, particularly hard hit
by a series of SAPs, people have
changed the meaning from Strutural Adjustment Program to
“Suffering for African People.”
Unrest leads to destruction of resources, government repression,
increased military and police
spending (never on the SAP list of
cutbacks) and reduction of
democratic rights.
SAPs = Injustice
The well docu-mented
suffering in Africa and
elsewhere is the basis of the
protests against the World
Bank and the IMF that have
taken place around the
world.
SAPs = Injustice
Let’s look for a moment at the
period now called the “lost
decade” when, from 1978 to 1992,
more than 70 developing
countries were subjected to 566
SAPs...
Per capita incomes in Africa
dropped by 12.5%;
In Latin America by 9.1%;
The number of under-weight
African children increased from 22
million to 38 million;
In Ghana infant mortality
increased by 20%;
SAPs = Injustice
In Zambia infant mortality went
from 76 to 113;
In Brazil, 60,000 “extra” child
deaths occurred;
Worldwide 500,000 extra child
deaths took place – not counting
war related deaths.
Meanwhile during this period,
third world nations transferred
$178 billion to first world
commercial banks.
Then came the great economic
boom of the 1990s…[1992–2000]
The 1990s Boom
In the 1990s boom about 10
trillion dollars was added each
year to the international economy
— for a total of $100 trillion
dollars — the greatest economic
expansion in the history of the
world. But...
• More than 80 countries had per
capita in-comes lower than at the
start of the decade;
• 55 countries saw per capita
incomes DECLINE during this
expansion;
• 89 countries had lower rates of
growth than in the period 1960–
1980; and...
The 1990s Boom
• Rates of improvement in life
expectancy, infant mortality, and
literacy, all slowed while…
• In 13 countries life expectancy
actually declined; and…
• In the 2nd poorest income quintile
female mortality increased...
In fact, much of the phenomenal
growth of the 1990s was “paper”
increases in stock values that
disappear-ed almost overnight in
the Enron and other corporate
scandals; or, was growth in China,
a country that ignores many SAP
rules.
Which is Why...
“…a decade of unprecedented
economic growth—adding over
$10 trillion a year to the global
economy— has left the number of
people living in poverty nearly
unchanged at more than 1 billion.”
Christopher Flavin, President, Worldwatch
Institute.
The 2003 World Bank
Development Report asks,
“How can productive work and
a good quality of life be
provided for the 2.5–3 billion
people now living on less than
$2 a day—and the 3 billion
people likely to be added to
developing countries by
2050—in an environmentally
and socially sustainable way?”
World Bank ...or ...
You can read the report yourself, or you can
take my word for it that the bank does not
propose democratic, worker owned
cooperatives, meaningful equality, or fair
trade networks as part of their solution.
They do call for a “reduction in poverty and
inequality at all levels,” but give no
workable plan for achieving it.
Indeed, the
Bank’s
policies over
the decades
have always
been consistent with the
needs of the
world’s billionaires, not
the world’s
poor for
whom the
bank always
has calls to
action that
are never
heeded.
...Mararikulam?
Microcredit combined with women’s
empowerment, combined with worker
owned businesses, combined with local
production using local raw materials for
sale to local markets, combined with
environmental rejuvenation, combined with
genuine social equality combined with
product quality combined with...
...Mararikulam?
...regular, high levels of democratic participation and community involvement,
combined with improvements in public
health and health care delivery, combined
with better nutrition, combined with adequate technical capacities of hired professional management where needed but
always under the democratic control of the
cooperative members — the workers...
Doesn’t the Mararikulam Experiment
qualify as a major component of the new
world order the world’s visionaries and
activists are starting to create.
• Like those who came before them in earlier
times, they have a slogan for the moment...
We won’t be intimidated — is a call to
conscience and to courage to protest the
injustices of corporate dominated
globalization…
but another sticker could add...
We will be creative and democratic … we will
build a world of justice, peace, environmental
sustainability, and progress…
We will do it from the bottom up — from our
own consciousness and our local communities…
and Mararikulam will be one of the many
experiments to inspire and inform us.
To stay informed about the Mararikulam
Experiment, go to
http://www.mararidevelopment.org