This paper analyzes microcredit demand and use to draw lessons on how households appropriate microcredit services. It introduces qualitative analysis to a randomized study. Findings suggest that microcredit demand and use is shaped not only by agro-ecological conditions, but by two major partially interrelated factors: debt-related norms articulated with the perception of the sanction in case of repayment default, and the "social life" of microcredit, namely, how social actors, credit officers, and local leaders, engage with microcredit. On a conceptual perspective we argue that microcredit "markets" do not result from supply confronting demand, but instead, are historical, political, and social constructs.