Cosa circola nel microcredito? La dimensione del dono nelle nuove pratiche di finanza solidale

In its transposition from so called “developing countries” to “post-industrial” Italy, microcredit has become a means ‒ rather than an end in itself ‒ that the welfare arena has welcomed to foster socioeconomic inclusion of vulnerable categories. Its “translation” into a contemporary social finance strategy and its implementation by not for profit organizations, have made it a financial tool that resists any affiliation to the market and commodities exchange. Is this enough to challenge Godbout’s (1993) assertion that we do not give back a gift, the way we give back money? Or does Italian microcredit’s specific reconfiguration allow us to (re)think about this financial strategy from the gift perspective? Moving from the question “What circulates in microcredit transactions?”, the paper explores the possibility of using the category of the gift to analyse microcredit practices. Grounding on both the presentation of Italian microfinance most relevant features and the description of a specific microcredit project carried out in Northern Italy, the paper specifically focuses on the peculiar shapes that the gift has taken in Italian microcredit transactions.