This dissertation research project will allow an anthropology graduate student to study the role of kinship and credit in two peasant villages in Korea. Through a combination of survey and intensive interviews and participant observation, the student will assess the role of kinship in helping wealthy peasants accumulate capital, and the countervailing tendency for kinship relations to drain capital from wealthy peasants towards their poorer relatives. This research is important because peasant villages are the homes of a large proportion of the world's population, and increased understanding of how peasant farmers use credit in a society where practically everyone is related to everyone else can help planners formulate policies that improve peasants' economic situations.
