Guelph, Ontario, Canada. This focus does not provide insight intorelated household information regarding household livelihood strategies, gender roles and the changing and heterogenous nature of rural cash flows tied to these decisions. This study uses Bolivian case-studies to show that this information is even more important in rural where activities and decisions are more integrated and interrelated than in urban areas. Two microlending programs, women's village banking technology and solidarity group lending, are examined with participants. The paper develops the view that part of the challenge posed to microlending organizations is an epistemological one.
Economic rationality can often supersede attention to context.
The conceptual methodological framework is shaped by Peter Checkland's Soft-Systems Methodology and Jurgen Habermas' concept of Democratic Communication. It draws from disciplinary roots in economic anthropology, gender and development literature, participatory development, rural finance theory and microfinance literature. Both qualitative and quantitative methods were used across a six month period. Adapted participatory rapid appraisal techniques were used as the primary tool in the interviews in order to examine, with participants, a wide variety of household livelihood strategies based on several characteristics. Next, representative samples of participant informationand loan data was examined to verify the trends identified in the household interviews.