'INTEGRATION' INTO THE CREDIT SYSTEM: A note on the meaning of fieldwork experience and money-lending in coastal Kerala (South India)

Credits are an integral part of everyday life in the South Indian state of Kerala. Beside credits from banks, agencies and social welfare organisations, a large number of credits are given among relatives, friends and acquaintances. The giving and taking of these credits, which are referred to as katam (debt), constitutes a kind of gift exchange. Though the need for an object — money — is the driving force behind the exchange, the giving and taking of katam depends on and is unthinkable without personal relations: it is the focus on existing relations and the desire and need to keep and strengthen them that makes the private lending of money a gift exchange. The difficulties experienced throughout the partial integration into the credit system during fieldwork in coastal Kerala profoundly contributed to the understanding of the credit system and its underlying value-ideas. Starting the discussion on money-lending by describing these personal experiences may help to make these value-ideas, which are so different from our own, more easily communicable and comprehensible.