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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.
“This is an insightful collection that evokes the traditional ethnographic project of studying ‘out of the way’ places…One of the volume’s real strengths is its geographical breadth, in terms both of the cases analysed and of the authors’ background. The studies are drawn from research conducted in twelve different countries on four continents: Africa, Asia, South America, and North America.” • JRAI
“[This volume]… is a welcome addition that describes, often in vibrant detail, how people are already engaging in financial activities and how their acts of saving, loaning, hedging, and investing are intimately linked to performances of personhood, understandings of morality, and even expressions of desire… The collection offers insights for scholars and policy makers alike who are concerned with the consequences and futures of payment systems for the unbanked. The volume will also work in the classroom, as the chapters offer compelling case studies that do justice to the tremendous variation and the social complexity of people’s monetary repertoires and payment systems, underscoring how the margins are not examples of failed development but rather sites that generate insight and innovation.” • Current Anthropology
“Indispensable reading material for scholars as well as industry specialists interested in payment infrastructures and the questions of money and value, this book entails fruitful applications for classroom use. One can hope that this innovative volume will inspire a similarly creative following that continues to combine empirical and industry-based insights with those of anthropological theory, along with an inclusive platform of diverse collaborators.” • American Ethnologist
“This very important collection adds unique ethnographic case studies from a wide variety of geographic contexts to the growing literature on financial inclusion.” • Anke Schwittay, University of Sussex
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Money and Finance at the Margins
Smoki Musaraj and Ivan V. Small
PART I: IN/EXCLUSION
The Question of Inclusion
Ananya Roy
Chapter 1. A Living Fence: Financial Inclusion and Exclusion on the Haitian-Dominican Republic Border
Erin B. Taylor and Heather A. Horst
Chapter 2. Capital Mobilization among Somali Refugee Business Community in Nairobi, Kenya
Kenneth Omeje and John Mwangi Githigaro
Chapter 3. The Use of Mobile-Money Technology among Vulnerable Populations in Kenya: Opportunities and Challenges for Poverty Reduction
Ndunge Kiiti and Jane Wanza Mutinda
PART II: VALUE AND WEALTH
What do Value and Wealth Do? “Life” Goes On, Whatever “Life” Is.
Jane I. Guyer
Chapter 4. Dhikuti Economies: The Moral and Social Ecologies of Rotating Finance in the Kathmandu Valley
Sepideh Azarshahri Bajracharya
Chapter 5. Chiastic Currency Spheres: Postsocialist “Conversions” in Cuba’s Dual Economy
Mrinalini Tankha
Chapter 6. Carola and Saraswathi: Juggling Wealth in India and in Mexico
Magadalena Villarreal, Isabelle Guérin, and K. S. Santosh Kumar
PART III: TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIAL RELATIONS
Infrastructures of Digital Money
Jenna Burrell
Chapter 7. ‘Financial Inclusion Means Your Money Isn’t With You’: Conflicts over Social Grants and Financial Services in South Africa
Kevin P. Donovan
Chapter 8. Social Networks of Mobile Money in Kenya
Sibel Kusimba, Gabriel Kunyu, and Elizabeth Gross
Chapter 9. Accounting in the Margin: Financial Ecologies in between Big and Small Data
José Ossandón, Tomás Ariztía, Macarena Barros, and Camila Peralta
PART IV: DESIGN AND PRACTICE
Design and Practice
Joshua E. Blumenstock
Chapter 10. Understanding Social Relations and Payments among Rural Ethiopians
Woldmariam F. Mesfin
Chapter 11. 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
Anatoly "Jing" Gusto and Emily Roque
Chapter 12. Effects of Mobile Banking on the Savings Practices of Low Income Users: The Indian Experience
Mani A. Nandhi
Chapter 13. Betting on Chance in Colombia: Using Empirical Work on Game Networks to Develop Practical Design Guidelines
Ana María Echeverry and Coppelia Herrán Cuartas
Afterword
Bill Maurer
Index