Rume: Rural Microfinance and Employment

Abstract. As suggested by Jan Breman, our understanding and knowledge of the living and employment conditions of this massive army of destitute workers is probably better than a quarter century ago, but the efforts for improvement have not up to now met with much success (Breman 1996: 23). Ten years later, the findings are, unfortunately, the same. The case study described here (brick kiln moulders in Tamil Nadu) illustrates the historical and social build up of strongly segmented migration networks, this segmentation, over time, providing them with a quasi–irrevocable character. The advance plays a determining role in this process of irreversibility. For sure, seniority in this sector allows the workers to develop some capacities of negotiation and to a certain extent strategies to circumvent the system, but at the same time it reinforces the dependence of the workers and their families on the brick kiln sector. The propensity to go into debt is now such that the workers have no more alternatives left. The advance and the other credits to which it gives access are fully integrated in family budget management as well as in individual and collective aspirations, especially matrimonial alliances. The advance is at the heart of the social building of local employment and credit markets, as well as forms of social mobility, or at least perceived as such. Except for the maistris and small landowners, who manage a little better than the others to amass and diversify their sources of income, for the others, the future offers no prospects.