Microloans and micronarratives: Sentiment for a small world

Shameem Black*

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    35 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    This essay evaluates the contribution that sentimentality might make to cosmopolitan practices in contemporary life. In particular, it considers how the legacy of feminized sentimental fiction informs twenty-first-century rhetoric on the Internet. The essay examines how the person-to-person microlending Web site Kiva fosters attachments with distant others through the illusion of intimacy that reshapes the global into an emotionally manageable size. This sentimental promise of a small world is both what enables and what haunts a cosmopolitan sense of responsibility to others.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)269-292
    Number of pages24
    JournalPublic Culture
    Volume21
    Issue number2
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - Mar 2009

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