Front and Back Covers,Volume 30, Number 4. August 2014

Front and back cover caption, volume 30 issue 4 Front cover WORLD CUP 2014 AND THE MILITARIZATION OF FAVELAS On the day of the World Cup final, Pamela, a member of the Occupy Alemão (Ocupa Alemão) collective, paints banners for a protest in Saens Peña square, less than a mile from where Argentina lost to Germany in Maracanã Stadium. In the run‐up to the two mega‐events – the World Cup 2014 and the Olympic Games 2016 – the Brazilian government has taken unprecedented security measures that effectively militarized and locked down the favelas. Widespread protest movements erupted that drew media attention to the disproportionate government expenditures on these spectacles, the corruption and their undesirable impact on the poor and the marginalized. ‘The party in the stadium isn't worth the tears in the favela’: mega‐events such as these do not have the same impact in every host society. In this issue, Charlotte Livingstone narrates the ups and downs during her fieldwork in the favelas. Back cover ROTATING CREDIT ASSOCIATIONS: DO WE NEED BANKS? The back cover photo shows women in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, engaged in an arisan, a rotating credit association, in 1983. When Ann Dunham, Barack Obama's mother, arrived in Jakarta in 1967 with the aim of researching microfinance in Indonesia, it was one of the local arisan she immediately joined. One woman is paying in while another keeps the records. Based on a lottery, each member receives a payout in turn. Arisan enable cash flow control and perform the savings and loan functions we tend to associate with banks and building societies, facilitating the purchase of almost anything ranging from a house, a motorbike to small items. The system is based on trust, where its members need to commit themselves to paying in until the last members have drawn their capital. Arisan serve many other roles too, and may be held purely for social reasons, facilitating regular meeting among family members, neighbours, housemates or workmates. Children participate in arisan early, learning how to collaborate harmoniously (gotong rojong) for small necessities such as pens and stationery. Anthropologists have long understood banks as institutions embedded within social relations. In this issue, Shirley Ardener addresses Archbishop Welby's call for the Anglican Church to outcompete payday loan companies charging excessive rates of interest at this time of austere family finances. She reminds us that anthropologists have long studied vernacular small‐scale banking systems embedded in the communities they study. Based on mutual trust, rates of interest here, if charged at all, are never as excessive as today's payday loan companies, which may exceed 5,000 per cent per annum.