03 Credit among Immigrants: Tanomoshi-ko Experiences in Liberdade District, São Paulo

Historically, the Rotating Savings and Credit Associations can be considered as one of the most important social and economic activities of the Japanese immigrants in Brazil. Commonly called by its members as tanomoshi or mujin, they could be characterized as informal associations of individuals through mutual cooperation systems of credit, mostly restricted to Japanese immigrants and their descendants. But why were they relevant to Japanese immigrant groups, particularly in urban contexts ? And which were their social basis for functioning ? Based on the example of a tanomoshi from Liberdade district in the city of São Paulo, I argue that these associations were crucial for the development and maintenance of Japanese commercial entrepreneurships since they represented an alternative to economic and social constraints, like the access to the formal credit and racial prejudice in post-war. The tanomoshi experiences are understood here as economic activities inscribed in social relations structures, and not only situations of profit maximization under conditions of uncertainty, risk and lack of information. In fact, it is difficult to conceive these kinds of association ruled by the same logic of the formal market.論