Recent imtfi_paper items

Money, Mobile Money and Rituals in Western Kenya: The Contingency Fund and the Thirteenth Cow

Wed, 4 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This article, based on fieldwork in Western Kenya from 2012 to 2016, describes how life cycle rituals collect and distribute different forms of money, including land, property, personhood, animals, cash, and digital moneys. It specifically examines a ritual coming of age for adolescent boys. By organizing multiple forms of money relative to the phases of a human life, the past, and the future, these rituals serve to manage and transfer wealth across generations and to give these transfers social and moral dimensions. The study provokes a critique of financial initiatives in the Global South that often assume that the financial goals of the poor are short-term.

Le pouvoir d’achat d’un billet de banque : du marché de Makola à Accra à un quartier de Long Beach en Californie/The purchasing power of a banknote: from Makola Market in Accra to a neighborhood in Long Beach, California

Thu, 29 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Translated by Sophie Chevalier and Emmanuelle Lallement

À première vue, la scène du marché de Makola n’a rien de vraiment particulier : des milliers, voire des centaines de milliers de personnes déambulent en plein air, parfois épaule contre épaule, dans les rues d’une zone qui couvre plusieurs pâtés de maisons, passant devant des étals de for-tune composés d’un simple carton sur lequel des marchandises sont exposées, ou devant des stands un peu plus élaborés, protégés par un parapluie portant la marque d’une société de télécommunication probablement disparue. À l’intérieur du « nouveau » marché, on suit un labyrinthe de couloirs sur plusieurs étages, certains ouverts à l’air libre, d’autres non ; ici, des vendeurs de poissons, des marchands d’épices installés près d’un conteneur métallique converti en moulin; là, des femmes présentent des tissus empilés jusqu’au plafond, à côté de couturières qui peuvent vous confectionner...

From externality in economics to leakage in carbon markets: An anthropological approach to market making

Wed, 5 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This article aims to demonstrate how anthropological studies may contribute to the economic experimentation toward a “good” market, that is, a market always open to uncertainty and contestation by different stakeholders. Taking up the recent call to study “marketization,” this is an ethnographic study of on-the-ground practices in experimenting with the REDD+ carbon trading scheme and institutionalizing the REDD+ carbon markets. Focusing on a pilot REDD+ project in the Brazilian Amazon, this article engages the formulation of the technical concept of leakage both in the economic theories of externalities and in the challenging practice of monitoring and calculating leakage. In the economic conceptualization of externalities, leakages are but the new externalities generated by the process of making new markets to internalize the externalities of previous markets. Whereas current debates about carbon leakages are predominantly concerned with the limited capacity of existing technologies...

RIDING THE RAILS OF MOBILE PAYMENTS Financial Inclusion, Mobile Phones, and Infrastructure

Wed, 23 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

With the increase of digital and networked media in everyday life, researchers have increasingly turned their gaze to the symbolic and cultural elements of technologies. From studying online game communities, locative and social media to YouTube and mobile media, ethnographic approaches to digital and networked media have helped to elucidate the dynamic cultural and social dimensions of media practice. The Routledge Companion to Digital Ethnography provides an authoritative, up-to-date, intellectually broad, and conceptually cutting-edge guide to this emergent and diverse area. Features include: a comprehensive history of computers and digitization in anthropology; exploration of various ethnographic methods in the context of digital tools and network relations; consideration of social networking and communication technologies on a local and global scale; in-depth analyses of different interfaces in ethnography, from mobile technologies to digital archives.

Determinants of awareness and adoption of mobile money technologies: Evidence from women micro entrepreneurs in Kenya

Mon, 2 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Over the last decade mobile phone based money services continue to expand in most of the developing countries. The spread of the technology is believed to reduce transaction costs and promote market integration. Even with the introduction of mobile money technologies, financial exclusion remains endemic especially with regard to gender aspect. This paper analyses women entrepreneur's adoption of mobile money services in Kenya. The results suggest that women's membership to table banking groups would easily influence awareness and consequently increase adoption of mobile payments services. Also, we established that women's control of enterprise finances and decision making significantly impact on awareness and usage of mobile money technologies. However, women are less likely to adopt mobile banking technology perceived to be out of reach for their communities and those that have hidden charges irrespective of having knowledge of their existence.

Revisiting the fishers of Kerala, India. ICTD 2013 Conference Proceedings

Fri, 21 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

In this paper, we revisit a study that has become canonical in ICTD, economist Robert Jensen's study of mobile phone use in fishing markets in north Kerala. Jensen found that the use of mobile phones to share market price information made fish markets more efficient while also improving producer and consumer welfare. Based on our own ethnographic case study in the region, our goal is to understand the geographic and political-economic conditions in which Jensen's findings hold and to examine questions of generalizability. We show that what makes the fish trade in north Kerala a special case is, in part, due to its coastal geography and prevalent credit relationships that provided fishers the flexibility to optimize profits by selling at different markets. However, we also found that those working in various roles in Kerala's fishing industry emphasized more broadly the use of phones in maintaining trade relations, facilitating coordination, and protecting themselves during times...

The Agent in a Transformational M-Banking Ecosystem – Interface or Intermediary? Conference paper. ICTD 2013 Conference Proceedings

Fri, 21 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The bank-led branchless banking model in India was born out of a national financial inclusion mandate that seeks to connect unbanked populations to formal financial services. This is implemented through a transformational, hybrid infrastructure that extends outreach via low-scale banking structures. These low-scale banking structures take banking services out of the brick-and-mortar bank branches and into the hands of non-bank agents (or business correspondents) that can now drive uptake in unserved regions on the branchless banking platform. This note demonstrates the results of a study that looked at Eko, one of the prominent mobile banking business correspondents in India, in its collaboration with the largest public sector bank in the country. In particular, this note will focus on the role of their retail agent network and how certain informal, frequently unstipulated, practices on their part may help in acquiring and retaining customers on the platform. In this way, the...

Open air market and mobile money information system requirements - Conference paper. International Conference on ICT For Smart Society (ICISS)

Fri, 21 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Existing mobile money architectures overlooked value storage and everyday money practices of individuals. They mainly deal with payment related issues and procedures based on bank accounts. They also targeted urban people, who have banking and technology know-how. Based on this knowledge gap, this research intends to explore, analyze, and identify design concepts for mobile money information system development that can support rural communities in developing countries who transact in open air market. Majority of our study population cannot write and read even their names; they identify currency notes based on color and size not based on values written on them, which raises the question how could such illiterate rural individuals transact in electronic payment ecosystem. In this context, the purpose of this study is to thoroughly analyze and understand the characteristic nature of cash transactions and usage scenarios among study participants in open air market and identify design...

Effects of Mobile Banking on the Savings Practices of Low-Income Users: The Indian Experience

Sat, 1 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This is Chapter 12 to Money at the Margins. Book description: Mobile money, e-commerce, cash cards, retail credit cards, and more—as new monetary technologies become increasingly available, the global South has cautiously embraced these mediums as a potential solution to the issue of financial inclusion. How, if at all, do new forms of dematerialized money impact people’s everyday financial lives? In what way do technologies interact with financial repertoires and other socio-cultural institutions? How do these technologies of financial inclusion shape the global politics and geographies of difference and inequality? These questions are at the heart of Money at the Margins, a groundbreaking exploration of the uses and socio-cultural impact of new forms of money and financial services.

Betting on Chance in Colombia: Using Empirical Evidence on Game Networks to Develop Practical Design Guidelines

Sat, 1 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This is Chapter 13 to Money at the Margins. Book description: Mobile money, e-commerce, cash cards, retail credit cards, and more—as new monetary technologies become increasingly available, the global South has cautiously embraced these mediums as a potential solution to the issue of financial inclusion. How, if at all, do new forms of dematerialized money impact people’s everyday financial lives? In what way do technologies interact with financial repertoires and other socio-cultural institutions? How do these technologies of financial inclusion shape the global politics and geographies of difference and inequality? These questions are at the heart of Money at the Margins, a groundbreaking exploration of the uses and socio-cultural impact of new forms of money and financial services.

[Afterword] Monetary Ingenuity: Drink It In

Sat, 1 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This is the Afterword to Money at the Margins. Book description: Mobile money, e-commerce, cash cards, retail credit cards, and more—as new monetary technologies become increasingly available, the global South has cautiously embraced these mediums as a potential solution to the issue of financial inclusion. How, if at all, do new forms of dematerialized money impact people’s everyday financial lives? In what way do technologies interact with financial repertoires and other socio-cultural institutions? How do these technologies of financial inclusion shape the global politics and geographies of difference and inequality? These questions are at the heart of Money at the Margins, a groundbreaking exploration of the uses and socio-cultural impact of new forms of money and financial services.

Accounting in the Margin: Financial Ecologies in between Big and Small Data

Fri, 31 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This is Chapter 9 to Money at the Margins. Book description: Mobile money, e-commerce, cash cards, retail credit cards, and more—as new monetary technologies become increasingly available, the global South has cautiously embraced these mediums as a potential solution to the issue of financial inclusion. How, if at all, do new forms of dematerialized money impact people’s everyday financial lives? In what way do technologies interact with financial repertoires and other socio-cultural institutions? How do these technologies of financial inclusion shape the global politics and geographies of difference and inequality? These questions are at the heart of Money at the Margins, a groundbreaking exploration of the uses and socio-cultural impact of new forms of money and financial services.

[Part IV Introduction] Design and Practice

Wed, 29 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This is Part IV Introduction to Money at the Margins. Book description: Mobile money, e-commerce, cash cards, retail credit cards, and more—as new monetary technologies become increasingly available, the global South has cautiously embraced these mediums as a potential solution to the issue of financial inclusion. How, if at all, do new forms of dematerialized money impact people’s everyday financial lives? In what way do technologies interact with financial repertoires and other socio-cultural institutions? How do these technologies of financial inclusion shape the global politics and geographies of difference and inequality? These questions are at the heart of Money at the Margins, a groundbreaking exploration of the uses and socio-cultural impact of new forms of money and financial services.

Understanding Social Relations and Payments among Rural Ethiopians

Wed, 29 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This is Chapter 10 to Money at the Margins. Book description: Mobile money, e-commerce, cash cards, retail credit cards, and more—as new monetary technologies become increasingly available, the global South has cautiously embraced these mediums as a potential solution to the issue of financial inclusion. How, if at all, do new forms of dematerialized money impact people’s everyday financial lives? In what way do technologies interact with financial repertoires and other socio-cultural institutions? How do these technologies of financial inclusion shape the global politics and geographies of difference and inequality? These questions are at the heart of Money at the Margins, a groundbreaking exploration of the uses and socio-cultural impact of new forms of money and financial services.

Delivering Cash Grants to Indigenous Peoples through Cash Cards versus Over-the-Counter Modalities: The Case of the 4Ps Conditional Cash Transfer Program in Palawan, Philippines

Wed, 29 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This is Chapter 11 to Money at the Margins. Book description: Mobile money, e-commerce, cash cards, retail credit cards, and more—as new monetary technologies become increasingly available, the global South has cautiously embraced these mediums as a potential solution to the issue of financial inclusion. How, if at all, do new forms of dematerialized money impact people’s everyday financial lives? In what way do technologies interact with financial repertoires and other socio-cultural institutions? How do these technologies of financial inclusion shape the global politics and geographies of difference and inequality? These questions are at the heart of Money at the Margins, a groundbreaking exploration of the uses and socio-cultural impact of new forms of money and financial services.

Social Networks of Mobile Money in Kenya

Tue, 28 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This is Chapter 8 to Money at the Margins. Book description: Mobile money, e-commerce, cash cards, retail credit cards, and more—as new monetary technologies become increasingly available, the global South has cautiously embraced these mediums as a potential solution to the issue of financial inclusion. How, if at all, do new forms of dematerialized money impact people’s everyday financial lives? In what way do technologies interact with financial repertoires and other socio-cultural institutions? How do these technologies of financial inclusion shape the global politics and geographies of difference and inequality? These questions are at the heart of Money at the Margins, a groundbreaking exploration of the uses and socio-cultural impact of new forms of money and financial services.

[Part III Introduction] Technology and Social Relations: Infrastructures of Digital Money

Tue, 28 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This is Part III Introduction to Money at the Margins. Book description: Mobile money, e-commerce, cash cards, retail credit cards, and more—as new monetary technologies become increasingly available, the global South has cautiously embraced these mediums as a potential solution to the issue of financial inclusion. How, if at all, do new forms of dematerialized money impact people’s everyday financial lives? In what way do technologies interact with financial repertoires and other socio-cultural institutions? How do these technologies of financial inclusion shape the global politics and geographies of difference and inequality? These questions are at the heart of Money at the Margins, a groundbreaking exploration of the uses and socio-cultural impact of new forms of money and financial services.

Chiastic Currency Spheres: Postsocialist “Conversions” in Cuba’s Dual Economy

Tue, 28 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This is Chapter 5 to Money at the Margins. Book description: Mobile money, e-commerce, cash cards, retail credit cards, and more—as new monetary technologies become increasingly available, the global South has cautiously embraced these mediums as a potential solution to the issue of financial inclusion. How, if at all, do new forms of dematerialized money impact people’s everyday financial lives? In what way do technologies interact with financial repertoires and other socio-cultural institutions? How do these technologies of financial inclusion shape the global politics and geographies of difference and inequality? These questions are at the heart of Money at the Margins, a groundbreaking exploration of the uses and socio-cultural impact of new forms of money and financial services.

[Part II Introduction] Value and Wealth: What do Value and Wealth Do? "Life" Goes On, Whatever "Life" Is

Tue, 28 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This is Part II Introduction to Money at the Margins. Book description: Mobile money, e-commerce, cash cards, retail credit cards, and more—as new monetary technologies become increasingly available, the global South has cautiously embraced these mediums as a potential solution to the issue of financial inclusion. How, if at all, do new forms of dematerialized money impact people’s everyday financial lives? In what way do technologies interact with financial repertoires and other socio-cultural institutions? How do these technologies of financial inclusion shape the global politics and geographies of difference and inequality? These questions are at the heart of Money at the Margins, a groundbreaking exploration of the uses and socio-cultural impact of new forms of money and financial services.

Carola and Saraswathi: Juggling Wealth in India and in Mexico

Tue, 28 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This is Chapter to Money at the Margins. Book description: Mobile money, e-commerce, cash cards, retail credit cards, and more—as new monetary technologies become increasingly available, the global South has cautiously embraced these mediums as a potential solution to the issue of financial inclusion. How, if at all, do new forms of dematerialized money impact people’s everyday financial lives? In what way do technologies interact with financial repertoires and other socio-cultural institutions? How do these technologies of financial inclusion shape the global politics and geographies of difference and inequality? These questions are at the heart of Money at the Margins, a groundbreaking exploration of the uses and socio-cultural impact of new forms of money and financial services.

Dhukuti Economies: The Moral and Social Ecologies of Rotating Finance in the Kathmandu Valley

Tue, 28 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This is Chapter 4 to Money at the Margins. Book description: Mobile money, e-commerce, cash cards, retail credit cards, and more—as new monetary technologies become increasingly available, the global South has cautiously embraced these mediums as a potential solution to the issue of financial inclusion. How, if at all, do new forms of dematerialized money impact people’s everyday financial lives? In what way do technologies interact with financial repertoires and other socio-cultural institutions? How do these technologies of financial inclusion shape the global politics and geographies of difference and inequality? These questions are at the heart of Money at the Margins, a groundbreaking exploration of the uses and socio-cultural impact of new forms of money and financial services.

‘Financial Inclusion Means Your Money Isn’t With You’: Conflicts Over Social Grants and Financial Services in South Africa

Tue, 28 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This is Chapter 7 to Money at the Margins. Throughout sub-Saharan Africa, governments and donors have significantly expanded the use of cash transfers to alleviate poverty and address other developmental needs such as education and health (Garcia and Moore 2012). These programs to “just give money to the poor” have been called a “development revolution” for their positive influences and administrative simplicity (Hanlon et al. 2010). Typically, these provide small cash grants at regular intervals to poor or vulnerable populations, most often to directly alleviate poverty but also to boost education or health. In addition to the direct goals of these initiatives, the aid industry has begun to explore ancillary benefi ts and opportunities.

Book description: Mobile money, e-commerce, cash cards, retail credit cards, and more—as new monetary technologies become increasingly available, the global South has cautiously embraced these mediums as a potential solution...

Rethinking saving: Indian ceremonial gifts as relational and reproductive saving

Mon, 27 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Economic anthropology has long advocated a broader vision of savings than that proposed by economists. This article extends this redefinitional effort by examining ceremonial gifts in India and arguing that they are a specific form of savings. Rural households, including those at the bottom of the pyramid, do save, in the sense of storing, accumulating and circulating value. But this takes place via particular forms of mediation that allow savers to forge or maintain social and emotional relations, to keep control over value – what matters in people’s lives – and over spaces and their own future. We propose terming these practices relational and reproductive saving, insofar as their main objective is to sustain life across generations. By contrast, trying to encourage saving via bank mediation may dispossess populations of control over their wealth, their socialisation, their territories and their time. In an increasingly financialised world of evermore aggressive policies to...

[Part I Introduction] In/Exclusion: The Question of Inclusion

Mon, 27 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Part I Introduction to Money at the Margins. Book description: Mobile money, e-commerce, cash cards, retail credit cards, and more—as new monetary technologies become increasingly available, the global South has cautiously embraced these mediums as a potential solution to the issue of financial inclusion. How, if at all, do new forms of dematerialized money impact people’s everyday financial lives? In what way do technologies interact with financial repertoires and other socio-cultural institutions? How do these technologies of financial inclusion shape the global politics and geographies of difference and inequality? These questions are at the heart of Money at the Margins, a groundbreaking exploration of the uses and socio-cultural impact of new forms of money and financial services.

Capital Mobilization among the Somali RefugeeBusiness Community in Nairobi, Kenya

Mon, 27 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This is Chapter 2 to Money at the Margins. Book description: Mobile money, e-commerce, cash cards, retail credit cards, and more—as new monetary technologies become increasingly available, the global South has cautiously embraced these mediums as a potential solution to the issue of financial inclusion. How, if at all, do new forms of dematerialized money impact people’s everyday financial lives? In what way do technologies interact with financial repertoires and other socio-cultural institutions? How do these technologies of financial inclusion shape the global politics and geographies of difference and inequality? These questions are at the heart of Money at the Margins, a groundbreaking exploration of the uses and socio-cultural impact of new forms of money and financial services.

The Use of Mobile-Money Technology among Vulnerable Populations in Kenya: Opportunities and Challenges for Poverty Reduction

Mon, 27 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This is Chapter 3 to Money at the Margins. Book description: Mobile money, e-commerce, cash cards, retail credit cards, and more—as new monetary technologies become increasingly available, the global South has cautiously embraced these mediums as a potential solution to the issue of financial inclusion. How, if at all, do new forms of dematerialized money impact people’s everyday financial lives? In what way do technologies interact with financial repertoires and other socio-cultural institutions? How do these technologies of financial inclusion shape the global politics and geographies of difference and inequality? These questions are at the heart of Money at the Margins, a groundbreaking exploration of the uses and socio-cultural impact of new forms of money and financial services.

A Living Fence: Financial Inclusion and Exclusion on the Haiti–Dominican Republic Border

Mon, 27 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Chapter 1 of Money at the Margins. Book description: Mobile money, e-commerce, cash cards, retail credit cards, and more—as new monetary technologies become increasingly available, the global South has cautiously embraced these mediums as a potential solution to the issue of financial inclusion. How, if at all, do new forms of dematerialized money impact people’s everyday financial lives? In what way do technologies interact with financial repertoires and other socio-cultural institutions? How do these technologies of financial inclusion shape the global politics and geographies of difference and inequality? These questions are at the heart of Money at the Margins, a groundbreaking exploration of the uses and socio-cultural impact of new forms of money and financial services.

Migrant Remittances and Financial Inclusion - A Study of Rickshaw Pullers in Delhi

Mon, 6 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

India is home to one third of the world's poor with second highest number of financially excluded households estimatedat about 135 million. A majority of the urban poor are internal migrants employed in unstable occupations (rickshaw pulling,street vendors) in the unorganised sector. Migrants face hardships in remitting their earnings because they do not have a bankaccount both at the migrated place and their village, thusforcing them towards expensive informal sector. Financialinclusion drive calls for a conscious attempt to reach the vast numbers of excluded poor. As migrant workers areheterogeneous, little, if any direct information is available about the volume of remittances and the transfer mechanismsused by migrants. Given the migrant workers contribution to the urban economy, issues relating to migrant remittancesassume significance for achieving financial inclusion.

The paper is drawn from a wider study about 176 rickshaw pullers in Delhi and explores the remittance...

Managing Risks: How Male and Female Headed Households Differ in Smoothing their Consumption? (Case: Poor Households in Yogyakarta, Indonesia)

Mon, 16 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Poor people face covariate risk, inequality and also an idiosyncratic risk that affect to personal belonging. However, how the poor people response to these risk varies with respect to the types of risks, jobs, gender, and others. Understanding on the income and consumption smoothing behavior of the poor helps business and government to formulate necessary policy and other strategic actions.

In many cases male and female headed household have different behavior towards risk. Female headed family may have better access to local informal financial institution such as rotated saving, while male headed family have more access to the market of farm and non farm product. Examining how they are different in managing risk fill the literature gap on this issue.

In this report we examine the practice of saving and depleting assets to achieve consumption smoothing among the poorest household in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. We selected 125 households, representing 25 household in...

Network linkages and money management: an anthropological purview of the Beesi network amongst the urban poor Muslims in old city area of Lucknow, India

Thu, 12 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Network linkages and money management: an anthropological purview of the Beesi network amongst the urban poor Muslims in old city area of Lucknow, India

Managing of treasury in the banking system within a multi currency economy: Evidence from Palestine

Thu, 12 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The Palestinian economy has no national currency which led to having three currencies in use for deposits, saving, wealth measurement and trade transactions. The non-national currency status leads to various problemsand add additional risk aspect, due to the fact that the changes in the exchangerates between the used major currencies are so significant. Thus, it leads tomake challenges to the management of banking treasury activities andfollowing balances of each single currency. Therefore, this research aimed totarget this issue using three research instruments, including examining therelated laws, imposed by the Palestinian Monetary Authority (PMA) on banksworking in Palestinian economy, structured interviews with banks’ treasurers,and a relevant questionnaire which was directed to a selected sample oftreasury staff and employees regarding closeting of foreign currency positions.The study found that management of banks working in the Palestinian economyimposed more strict levels...

Change we don’t believe in? Coin attitudes, resistance, and use in post-redenomination Ghana

Tue, 10 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

A currency redenomination re-introduced coins into the Ghanaian economy. Anecdotal observations, media reports, and previous research suggested that coins were not as easily integrated into Ghanaian financial transactions as paper bills were. The purpose of this study was to understand this resistance to coins as a form of money and investigate prevailing attitudes to coins as a medium of exchange. In study 1, we assessed self-reported attitudes to coins. Studies 2 and 3 assessed coin size estimations and coin recognition rates respectively as indirect indicators of attitudes to coins. Study 4 explored the probability of “lost” coins of different values being picked up from pavements in Ghana’s capital city, whereas Study 5 indirectly explored attitudes to coins and other forms of money used in Ghana using their typicality ratings. Collectively, the results suggest that resistance to coins was not universal, but was related, in part, to their financial value.

Monetary Practices of Traditional Rural Communities in Ethiopia: Implications for New Financial Technology Design

Tue, 10 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

With the development of ubiquitous technologies that support the digitization of money, research is needed on how individuals’ private life practices are affected by new technological financial systems and how cash-based practices can inform their design. In this article, we report the cash-based monetary practices of one Ethiopian rural community and identify their implications for the design of new financial technology. Particularly, we focus on addressing the question, What characteristic features should go into the design of mobile money application(s) to embody a rural Ethiopian community’s money practices in social (marriage and death) and religious contexts? Primary data on everyday practices of the community were collected. Analysis of our data reveals that new financial technology design should support lived experiences such as embedded social meaning, segregated and aggregate money control, restricted money use, identity extension and hiding, refusal and acceptance of...

Making Poverty Into A Financial Problem: From Global Poverty LinesTo Kiva.Org

Tue, 10 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This paper presents the financialization of poverty as a conceptual addition to the literature on microfinance. It argues that for microfinance to be seen as a solution to poverty alleviation, poverty has been made into a financial problem. This is exemplified by the World Bank's global poverty line and leads to the constitution of poor people as financial subjects. In addition, thinking of poverty in financial terms enables Northern publics’ engagement with poverty. Recent initiatives like Live Below the Line and Kiva.org are presented as examples of how poverty is made manageable for Northern supporters of microfinance.

On the Importance of Price Information to Fishers and to Economists: Revisiting Mobile Phone Use Among Fishers in Kerala

Tue, 10 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

In this article, we revisit a study that has become canonical in ICTD, economist Robert Jensen’s study of mobile phone use in fishing markets in north Kerala. Jensen found that the use of mobile phones to share market price information made fish markets more efficient, while also improving producer and consumer welfare. Based on our own ethnographic case study in the region, we examine the historical, geographic, and political-economic conditions in which Jensen’s findings hold. We show that north Kerala’s coastal geography and prevalent credit relationships make it a special case of fish trading where fishers had the flexibility to optimize profits by selling at different markets. Fishers’ ability to leverage mobile phones for sharing price information derived from this flexibility. Moreover, we found a broader definition of welfare at play that went beyond increased income. Those working in various roles in Kerala’s fishing industry emphasized a spectrum of benefits from phone...

On the limits of trust

Tue, 10 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Purpose: This paper aims to investigate automated teller machine (ATM) fraud in southwest Nigeria, as extant studies have not examined the unintended consequences of ATM subscription particularly the effect of the identity of fraudsters and the strategies for defrauding.

Design/methodology/approach: Using sequential exploratory strand of mixed method, data were collected from both ATM users and victims of ATM fraud using multi-stage sampling procedure. This involved purposive selection of Lagos and Oyo states.

Findings: Results showed that fraudsters were typically lovers, friends, relatives and sometimes children of victims. Strategies for defrauding included card cloning, swapping of cards and physical attacks at ATM galleries.

Research limitations/implications: Because of the size of the sample which is small, the research results may lack generalizability. More expansive works are needed...

The social unit of debt: Gender and creditworthiness in Paraguayan microfinance

Mon, 9 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Paraguayan microcredit poverty-alleviation programs are built around instrumentalizing women's economic ties through group-based loans guaranteed by no more than the promise of women's solidarity and joint liability for their collective loan repayment. I track the production and regulation of the social unit of borrowing in different aspects of microcredit, drawing on examples of individual loans, loans to “committees of women entrepreneurs,” credit scores, and a short-lived program of “men's committees.” I illustrate how the institutionalized management of creditworthiness actually produces the very flexible and relational feminized borrowers to which microcredit initiatives seek to appeal and, in so doing, creates certain kinds of gendered sociality by enacting and embodying different social units of debt.

Trust and Social Capital in the Old City of Hyderabad: A Study of Self-Help Groups of Women, India

Mon, 9 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Why do people trust each other? Do people form groups through mutual trust or self-interest? How does the theory of rational choice and accompanying individualism affect the concept of social capital? Are social cohesiveness in groups and financial success related? Such questions generate interest in conditions promoting association and group emergence, such as trust, reliability, reciprocity, and shared values, which are inherent factors for cohesion. Self-help groups (SHGs) in an urban context are used to comprehend the aforementioned questions. The proposed study is based on the following hypothesis: the formation of groups is not based on trust but on material- and non-material- need-based individual rational choices that force them to cooperate with each other. It is found that a sense of insecurity among migrant women, an emotional need, led the formation of the imagined communities and has paved the way to construct trust. Thus, trust is found to be secondary in construction...

Mediating microinsurance: the techniques of translation

Mon, 9 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Over the past decade, microinsurance has taken off in South Africa. The strength of this market is fuelled almost exclusively by funeral insurance, unsurprising considering the immense cultural value South Africans place on funerals. Moreover, insurance companies have achieved scale by working through brokers who are embedded within community-based institutions like burial societies and funeral parlours. The incursion of ‘insurance culture’ into this sphere has thus resulted in an ecosystem in which formal and informal institutions are in fluid states of tension and cooperation. Mediators sustain this ecosystem and enable the extension of microinsurance into low-income communities. I employ Bruno Latour’s notion of ‘translation’ in my analysis of three types of mediators: insurance agents, funeral parlour operators, and burial society administrators. The paper, which is based on fieldwork I conducted in Cape Town, South Africa, focuses on these actors’ specific techniques of translation,...

Following Mobile Money in Somaliland - Rift Valley Institute Research Paper 4

Mon, 9 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Zaad, Somaliland’s first mobile money platform, was launched in 2009 and has rapidly become a feature of a financial landscape hitherto dominated by Somali remittance companies. This report charts the distribution of mobile money across the financial landscape of Somaliland. It examines the way the Zaad service is reshaping livelihoods and business practices, as well as implications of its popularity for the relationship between state and non-state actors, and the effect this might have on Somaliland’s political and financial institutions. It argues that the narrative of the role that mobile systems can have in supporting financial inclusion runs the risk of obscuring complex political and economic dynamics, especially in the context of Somaliland’s state-building process. The study suggests that the popularity of Zaad is in part due to the specific context in which it operates as well as the business model and outreach strategy of its parent company Telesom. Fundamentally,...

Industry Challenges and Policy Barriers in Adoption of Mobile Value Added Services in Remote Islands: The Case of Fiji

Mon, 9 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

While mobile phones are making significant inroads in many developing countries, little remains known about thepolicy and infrastructure constraints that affect their use for growth of micro enterprises. We address this gap in theliterature. The uniqueness of our study also lies in the focus on women micro entrepreneurs in a remote Pacific islandcountry. To obtain both the demand-side and supply-side perspectives, we conducted semi-structured interviews of74 women micro entrepreneurs and ten key informants from the Fijian Government, mobile network operators(MNOs), and financial institutions. We found that appropriate policy framework, supporting infrastructure andappropriate ecosystem are required for rapid uptake of mobile value added services by women owned microenterprises in Fiji. A significant number of women micro entrepreneurs were willing to embrace mobile value addedservices if these were made available with adequate security and at reasonable cost.

Smart phone is a expectation-laden trophy: adolescent girls-adults' mobile phone tensions and changing sexuality negotiation

Mon, 9 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This article is based on a study conducted in Nigerian Christian and Muslim neighborhoods on the intrigues that characterized adults-adolescent girls’ relations about how and when adolescent girls could use smart phones. Questionnaires, ethnographic interviews, school debates, observations, and focus group discussion methods were used to study the influence of smart phones on adolescent girls’ identity construction, adults-adolescent girls’ tension as regards ownership and use of smartphones, and new dynamics in adolescent girls-male friends’ relationship caused by smart phone uptake. For this population, smart phones display contextual symbolism that transcends their technological meaning, shifting girls’ social dependence from adults to peers and technology. Smart phone use has given adolescent girls a new way of identity construction, empowered them subtly in sexuality negotiation and assigned new roles to them. Adults’ concern about adolescent girls’ use of smart phones is...

Crowdfunding care in Kenya

Mon, 9 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Crowdfunding to support personal and medical needs has risen in popularity in recent years. Many sociologists are critical of needy individuals’ turn to online fundraising, seeing it as a response to deficits in health care and social protection, and arguing that it may widen social inequalities. Most of these studies have taken place in the United States, China, and Great Britain. This paper explores crowdfunding in sub-Saharan Africa, offering us an opportunity to rethink the context and value of crowdfunding and its relationship to family and friend networks, philanthropy, and charity. It also examines how online crowdfunding relates to cultural ideas about dependency and care. Based on my ethnographic fieldwork at the Nairobi crowdfunding platform M-Changa conducted from 2016 to 2021, I describe how social entrepreneurs, women, and NGO representatives raise money for philanthropic initiatives, medical and education costs, family rituals, and COVID-19 relief. The paper reveals...

Human and non-human intermediation in rural agricultural markets

Mon, 9 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

A central trope of the information society is that of ‘information flows.’ The implicit assumption underlying such a vision involves the removal of gatekeepers and intermediaries who are perceived to impede such flows. Drawing from field research on information circulation, trade, and money in rural markets in Myanmar and India, we show why intermediaries persist alongside information and communication technologies (ICTs) in trade and financial transactions in the ‘Information Age.’ We examine the range of roles, (human and non-human) actors, and material practices that are involved in conducting financial transactions, and we show the importance of historical legacies and politics in explaining why both cash and financial intermediaries persist in the digital age. Focusing on the different value that human and non-human intermediaries bring to financial encounters helps explain what characteristics make each resilient or replaceable in a time of change. By situating intermediaries...

Family Networks of Mobile Money in Kenya

Mon, 2 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This research examines the interplay between social networks and mobile money remittances in Western Kenya. Research was conducted in Kenya’s Bungoma and Trans-Nzoia counties in 2012, 2013, and 2014, involving 12 family networks of between 8—70 people. Using small and frequent digital money transfers, relatives provide for household and emergency needs, contribute to ceremonies, and help pay school fees and medical bills. We find that digital money transfers follow and reinforce preexisting forms of emotional support and social relationships. In these families, the transfers strengthen maternal kinship ties as well relationships among siblings and cousins. Money networks are reciprocal, such that senders are also receivers, and individuals have many connections through which to access resources. Some individuals are “central” in networks, having more connections; others broker flows of e-value from one group of relatives to another. Mobile money strengthens social bonds but can...

The role of mobile phones in the mediation of border crossings: A study of Haiti and the Dominican Republic

Mon, 2 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This article draws upon recent work among Haitian migrants living at the Haitian-Dominican border in order to examine the role of mobile phones in cross-border movement in the region. Like other migrants and displaced populations, Haitians use technologies such as mobile phones to keep in touch with their families and maintain social relations as well as organising economic activities and the circulation of remittances. Yet the dependence of Haitian workers on geographic mobility for work and livelihood also requires developing and maintaining relationships across borders. The focus upon understanding relationships formed within and beyond the southern border region of Haiti and the Dominican Republic seeks to make ethnographically visible the role of the mobile phone in mediating different forms of mobility.

The unbearable lightness of digital money

Mon, 2 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This paper examines the factors that make cash ‘sticky’ in the increasingly digitized Kenyan financial landscapes. On the one hand, it discusses the mismatch between assumptions implicit in the financial inclusion discourse and ideas of saving, accumulation and money enshrined in local financial practices, and provides an overview of the current digital payment situation in Kenya, in terms of strategies and data. On the other hand, it draws insights from industry efforts in which industry expectations are tested against a background shaped by the dominance of cash and traditional financial institutions. The overall goal is to further the understanding of potential drivers and challenges of ‘cash-lite’ approaches to financial inclusion, as well as the convergence and divergence of theory and evidence. This study uses qualitative methods of data collection to understand the social, cultural and economic drivers of payment behaviours, and the opportunities and constraints for adoption...

Navigating Mobile Phone Infrastructures on the Border of Haiti and the Dominican Republic

Mon, 2 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This chapter examines “location” as it emerges in relation to technologies such as the mobile phone. It explores the ways in which location helps to determine how, where, and why particular mobile technologies operate in particular locations. Through a case study of the southernmost border of Haiti (Anse-a-Pitres) and the Dominican Republic (Pedernales), it highlights how “location” is made and unmade through state and regulatory infrastructures. Stressing the importance of “the border” as a particular kind of location, it explores concepts of “bordering,” “disembordering,” and “infrastructuring” as forms of placemaking with and through technologies. Bringing together ethnographic research with Haitian migrants and the broader history of telecommunications liberalization, the chapter examines the ways in which these infrastructures are made, unmade, and stitched together by consumers and companies. The aim is to make “ethnographically visible” the immaterial ways in which mobile...

Poverty and Migration in the Digital Age: Experimental Evidence on Mobile Banking in Bangladesh

Mon, 2 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Rapid urbanization is reshaping economies and intensifying spatial inequalities. In Bangladesh, we experimentally introduced mobile banking to very poor rural households and family members who had migrated to the city, testing whether mobile technology can reduce inequality by modernizing traditional ways to transfer money. One year later, for active mobile banking users, urban-to-rural remittances increased by 26 percent of the baseline mean. Rural consumption increased by 7.5 percent, and extreme poverty fell. Rural households borrowed less, saved more, sent additional migrants, and consumed more in the lean season. Urban migrants experienced less poverty and saved more but bore costs, reporting worse health.

Mobile Money and the (Un)Making of Social Relations in Chivi, Zimbabwe

Mon, 2 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The rapid expansion of mobile money technologies in Zimbabwe has substantially altered the monetary ecology and the payment landscape. This article examines the ways in which the adoption, usage and meanings attached to mobile money (re)configure social relationships in the rural community of Chivi. We demonstrate the ways in which mobile money technologies mediate the politics of everyday social relations and shape local social relations in profound ways. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, we explore the complex ways through which mobile money makes and unmakes social relations between transacting parties and between the agents themselves. Our main finding is that the impact of mobile money on social relations in the community is predominantly ambivalent. We observed that mobile money triggers contestation, hostility and conflict while simultaneously fostering social solidarity and convivial relationships. The main sources of contention in mobile money transactions in Chivi involved...

Hearthholds of mobile money in western Kenya

Mon, 2 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Kenyans use mobile money services to transfer money to friends and relatives via mobile phone text messaging. Kenya's M-Pesa is one of the most successful examples of digital money for financial inclusion. This article uses social network analysis and ethnographic information to examine ties to and through women in 12 mobile money transfer networks of kin, drawn from field data collected in 2012, 2013, and 2014. The social networks are based on reciprocal and dense ties among siblings and parents, especially mothers. Men participate equally in social networks, but as brothers and mother's brothers more often than as fathers. The matrilineal ties of mobile money circulate value within the hearthhold (Ekejiuba 2005) of women, their children, and others connected to them. Using remittances, families negotiate investments in household farming or work, education, and migration. Money sending supports the diverse economic strategies, flexible kinship ties, and mobility of hearthholds....

Here and there? Mobile money and the politics of transnational living patterns in West Africa

Mon, 2 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The authors examine the use of mobile money in the context of cross-border remittances in West Africa. Relying on mixed methods and a multi-sited empirical strategy they look at both the sending and receiving conditions of mobile money transfers. By looking at money as socially embedded and the role of migrants in the production of a transnational space, their results highlight that uptake and usage of mobile money for remittances are shaped by a transnational living pattern. At the same time, mobile money also contributes to strengthening and reshaping this pattern. By showing that conversion of virtual money to cash may be performed by brokers that live far away from the end recipient, the paper highlights an important gap between spatial distribution of mobile money infrastructure and the social mediation that supports e-money flows. Cash-based transactions, in turn, are shown to play a key role in the social mediation dynamic.

Gambling, Saving, and Lumpy Liquidity Needs

Mon, 2 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I present evidence that unmet liquidity needs for indivisible, "lumpy," expenditures increase demand for betting as a second-best method of liquidity generation in the presence of financial constraints. With a sample of 1,708 sports bettors in Kampala, Uganda, I show that participants' targeted payouts are linked to anticipated expenditures, while winnings increase lumpy expenditures disproportionately. I show that a randomized savings treatment decreases demand for betting. And I use two lab-in-the-field experiments to show that unmet liquidity needs and saving ability are important mechanisms. These results cannot be explained by betting as a purely normal good.

Transitory income changes and consumption smoothing: Evidence from Mexico