Listen to UO anthropology professor Lamia Karim on NPR’s All Things Considered:
http://www.npr.org/2011/03/02/134208312/nobel-winner-removed-from-bank-he-founded

Lamia Karim, associate professor of the University of Oregon Department of Anthropology and associate director of the UO Center for the Study of Women in Society, was interviewed March 2 on NPR for her expertise on microfinance and the Grameen Bank. The story, titled “Nobel Winner Removed From Bank He Founded,” focuses on the efforts of the Central Bank of Bangladesh to remove Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus from his post as director of the Grameen Bank.

Karim had critical remarks to make about the effects of microfinance lending by the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh: “Women, poor women in particular, are getting deeper and deeper in debt. And this is largely because, similar to the banking industry in the U.S., microfinance for a very long time has been an unregulated industry. So people could go out and extend loans to people without any kind of oversight.”

Karim has a new book coming out this month from the University of Minnesota Press. Microfinance and Its Discontents: Women in Debt in Bangladesh is an in-depth feminist critique of the much-lauded microcredit process in Bangladesh.

Knight Library, Browsing Room
1501 Kincaid St.
UO campus

This talk addresses critical issues in the efforts to bring to court human rights violators in Latin America. It discusses two types of national courts litigation: first, when litigation is available in the country where the crime occurred; and second and most commonly, when litigation takes place in third country national courts (also known as universal jurisdiction). An analysis of the Alien Tort Statute in US courts and the impact of these cases in the transitional justice efforts in Latin America will be included, as well as a review of the practice and implementation of Universal Jurisdiction in Spain in relation to Latin America. Using cases from El Salvador and Guatemala, this lecture sheds light on the possibilities and challenges of using legal instruments in transnational efforts to bring justice and reparation to victims of human rights violations.