‘No cash, no ritual’: the intersections between cash shortages and ritual enactment in north-western Zimbabwe

By guest blogger Joshua Matanzima, La Trobe University

Introduction

This article examines the impact of the ‘cash crisis’ bedevilling Zimbabwe since mid-2016 on the enactment of the Masabe ceremony within the BaTonga community, (Sinakatenge Chiefdom, Eastern Binga, North-west Zimbabwe). The article argues that the cash crisis has negatively affected Masabe ritual processes. The paper argues that traditional ceremonies have in contemporary times adopted use of ‘cash’ to facilitate their conduct. Hence, the liquidity crisis resulted in decreased cash in circulation has thus witnessed ceremonies being postponed, delayed or even avoided. In the quest to further understand the negative consequences of cash crisis on ritual engagement, the study analyses BaTonga traditional culture and religious practices. It highlights the importance of religion and ritual in fulfilling individual and societal needs and discusses how disruptions in ritual engagement can affect the psychological needs of individuals or the integration and cohesion of the society/group. The study utilizes cases from BaTonga villages in Sinakatenge Chiefdom. Oral testimonies were ethnographically collected from BaTonga villagers pertaining to the challenges being faced in conducting the Masabe ceremonial practices.

Figure 1. Researcher and local informants: women holding their smoking pipes. 

Field Notes

In 2017, I conducted ethnographic research among the BaTonga speaking people of Sinakatenge Chiefdom, north-western Zimbabwe. Sinakatenge is part of Binga Rural District. It lies along the margins of the nation-state at the Zimbabwe-Zambia border. The research examined the Masabe (alien) spirits ritual process. The Masabe ritual process is the means by which an alien spirit possessing a victim and causing illness is made to manifest itself and then depart the body of the victim, restoring the possessed person to health. Masabe possession as an ‘organized cult of affliction which addresses itself to the individual instead of the community’. Masabe can take over and speak through human vehicles and causes sickness to its victim. Masabe have desires which are made manifest through their victims and are pacified through a dance performance in which the victim enacts these desires. The research involved participant observations and semi-structured interviewing.  I attended a total of 5 Masabe ritual ceremonies and interviewed 24 elders, both men and women, regarding the Masabe ritual process. The centrality of ‘money’ in the entire process was emphasized by the elders interviewed and formed part of my personal observations. 

At a time when this research was conducted Zimbabwe faced serious economic crises characterized by high unemployment, high inflation, food shortages and cash crises. Many Masabe ritual ceremonies were delayed, procrastinated, and even avoided due to the costs involved and challenges encountered in purchasing the material required for the ritual to be successfully enacted. The material required for the Masabe ritual ceremony includes a black cloth, beads and black goat, as well as sugar, mealie meal, sorghum, and yeast for beer brewing. In the absence of these items the Masabe ritual ceremony cannot be enacted. Consequently, the affected families often delay, procrastinate, and, at worst, avoid conducting these ceremonies. 

Following the early to mid-2000s liquidity crunch, in 2009, the Zimbabwean economy was dollarized. Dollarization meant resorting to the use of the US dollar as a result of local currency devaluation. Dollarization helped reduce inflation rates and also stabilise the economy. However, from 2013 cash shortages re-emerged and by April 2016, much of the US dollars were reported to be externalized at an alarming rate, thereby causing the cash crisis. In a bid to address this cash crisis, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe introduced ‘Bond Notes’ of 2 USD and 5 USD denominations, and the 1 USD ‘Bond coin’ which were said to be equivalent in value to the real US$2, US$5 and US$1 respectively. These new notes and coins were introduced alongside the increased emphasis on the use of plastic money and Ecocash/OneWallet (mobile phone-based money services, or mobile money) for transactions. Indeed, plastic money and Ecocash/OneWallet proved somewhat effective for those living in urban areas. But it did not have the same impact for those living in marginalised or remote communities. 

Local transactions in Sinakatenge were mainly based on barter trade at the time. Sadly, such materials as cloth, beads and yeast were unavailable in local stores where barter was tolerated. People had to purchase these from urban areas, where either cash or mobile money was required. Sugar was available in local stores, but its price of 3 USD per 2kgs, was steep for the local people, who could not afford the sugar needed for the ceremony. Many, if not all, people in Sinakatenge had no bank cards, were cashless, and had no Ecocash/OneWallet. The unavailability of mobile network coverage in the area discouraged people from owning mobile phones. Thus, the villagers found it difficult for them to purchase these materials needed for the Masabe ceremony. Before the liquidity challenge, purchasing of these items locally and in Gokwe was not a major challenge. The US dollar introduced during the Government of National Unity era had in a way solved inflation and currency devaluation problems.

The Masabe ritual process and costs

At first, the person possessed by Masabe normally is afflicted with ‘illness’ or ‘sickness’. The ‘sick’ person sought clinical medical attention in local clinics where consultation and medication were free of charge. It is the norm that every sick person must seek clinical medical attention before visiting bun’anga (traditional healer). However, some people were referred to hospitals in Gokwe or Binga, (which are the nearest town centres), especially when the ‘sickness’ becomes more serious. This, indeed, is done at some significant costs. If the kinsmen of the ‘sick’ person have bank cards or mobile money access, they might purchase and pay for medication using such platforms. But, this is usually expensive to them due to transaction charges. 

Furthermore, if the illness persists, despite modern medication uptake, then the ‘sick’ person is taken to traditional healers. Traditional healers also require payment, which also now is in the form of cash whether the Masabe is diagnosed or not. The ‘sickness’ is thus considered to be the ‘arrival’ of the Masabe which in this case is only diagnosed by traditional means than modern systems. Once the Masabe spirit discloses its identity through the traditional healer it awaits a performance to be held for it so that it manifests itself.

The second step is, after the ‘sickness’ has been found to be Masabe related, when beer is brewed. Beer brewing for Masabe ceremony is done by women from the possessed person’s matrilineage. This is so because the society is a matrilineal. The day at which sorghum is soaked in water, the possessed person is supposed to commence sleeping in a chidumba (a house made of poles and grass) until the process of beer brewing is over. The construction of the chidumba requires labour and meeting the costs of gathering the needed construction material, such as poles, grass and stones. To hire the labour for construction and gathering building material needs money. In many cases, these labourers demand cash rather than goods such as grain, soap, salt and so on. So, the kinsmen of the possessed usually wait until they obtain cash to pay for the material and constructors, thereby prolonging the duration of the illness of the victim. Beer for mizimu (ancestors) and the possessed person is brewed in a small pot separate from bigger containers (in which that of attendees is brewed). This is so because the beer for mizimu does not have yeast added into it, whereas that of the invited guests needs yeast. The explanations for putting and not putting yeast on the two different containers were not quite apparent. Sugar is also added in the beer.

 

Figure 2. An old woman beer brewing.

Purchasing these items from local stores its expensive, thus, villagers opt to purchase the aforementioned items in Gokwe where the prices are generally low. The cost of 2kgs sugar, for example, in Gokwe at the time of the study was US$1.90 and in their local shops was US$3.00. With the prevailing cash shortages purchasing sugar in Gokwe was a major challenge as it also involved transport costs to and from Gokwe. Villagers opted to exchange grain for sugar in local stores where they incurred heavy losses. In this case, barter trade is disadvantageous to the consumer as it is obvious that the measure of goods he/she obtains in return is usually inequivalent to that which he/she would have exchanged. 

Figure 3. Men constructing chidhumba.

When the possessed person sleeps in the chidumba, he/she is expected to ‘sleep’ together with a ‘black’ goat. Every morning the person and the goat are let out, the goat must not forage far from the chidumba. If the goat goes missing that implies that the person is not possessed. When the beer is ready for drinking, local people are invited to attend the Masabe ceremony. The goat is significant during the Masabe ceremony as it is part of the ritual. The purchasing of a goat is thus not necessarily regarded as a major challenge since most families own goats. The possessed person may own goats from which one may be used in the ritual. Those with no goats are bound to purchase one, and acquiring a goat due to cash shortages can be a challenge. The fact that the goat must be black forced those without black goats to either buy or exchange with others for a black one. 

The third and the last stage is the enactment of the ritual ceremony. The Masabe ritual ceremony is enacted during the night. It usually involves drum beating, dancing and traditional beer (Bugande) drinking especially by invited guests. The performance of the ceremony brings together all possessed by that particular form of Masabe to support the new victim as she/he expresses the nature of the possessing force. During the ceremony, the goat is cut on its neck and its blood (musiye) is drained and put into a bowl made of wood. The full goat meat is given to a close friend of the family (sahwira). The possessed is then given the musiye to drink it. It is alleged he/she must not vomit. If he/she vomits it simply means the person is not possessed by Masabe. A senior member of the family appeases to the alien spirits on behalf of the possessed person, at the same time drum (butimbe) beating and singing commences until the Masabe possessing the sick manifests itself. The manifestation of the spirits shows the kind of Masabe the person is possessed with. The possessed must act as the spirit behaves. For example, if one is possessed by a baboon spirit, he or she must behave or act like a baboon during that night. He/she must climb trees and roof tops etc. as baboons do. Thus, although Masabe spirits, like all other Tonga spirits, are considered as formless and bodiless before they afflict a person, they change their identity in the course of the ritual process from an immaterial being into a spirit of “something” which can take a great variety of embodiments. After the Masabe ceremony, the ‘sick’ person will then automatically get healed from her/his illness.

Figure 4. The chidhumba (a temporary shelter for a possessed person).

 

Case example: In Siachimupa Village, Mukuli’s (who had her Masabe ceremony enacted on the 5th of September 2017) illness, for instance, took about eight months. This period involved people having to consult medical practitioners and local prophets pertaining the cause of disease and its suitable medication. At which, no cause of the disease was detected. The final solution was to visit traditional healers who discovered that she was possessed by a dancing Masabe spirit and for her to be healed a Masabe ceremony was supposed to be held. Traditional healers had discovered this four months before 5 September 2017 when the ceremony was eventually conducted. The 4 months delay was because there were no funds to conduct the ceremony. Here we see the ways by which macro-economic hardships can negatively influence ritual processes. At this time, the Zimbabwean economic downturn coupled with cash crisis made it difficult for her kinsmen to acquire funds to purchase a black cloth, beads, black goat, and ingredients for beer brewing on time. Hence her ‘sickness’ was prolonged. Observing her skin, it had developed blistered. She had significantly lost weight, her legs were swollen and she could not even walk on her own.

Conclusion 

Cash crisis in Zimbabwe has not only impacted on the economy and politics of the country, but it has also impacted on ritual enactment. In modern day rituals enactment require materials and money is needed to purchase these material items. In the case of the Masabe ritual- ceremonies discussed above, the purchase of black goats, black cloths, beer ingredients became difficult due to the cash crisis. Purchasing these using mobile and plastic money in the nearest towns of Gokwe and Binga was even more expensive due transaction charges. Due to these challenges Masabe ceremonies were often delayed, procrastinated and avoided. The delay or temporal avoidance of these ceremonies impacted on the possessed individual as well as the entire community. Delays prolonged the sickness of an individual which further impacted on the psychologically. If a person by a ‘water’ spirit, they have the power to predict and intercede for rains; so if their ceremonies are delayed or avoided it means that the community as a whole is affected as it benefits from the person’s rain spiritual forecasts and rainmaking intercessions. 

Link to research article in African Identities, "Religious rituals and socio-economic change: the impact of the Zimbabwe ‘cash crisis’ on the BaTonga Masabe (alien spirits) ceremony."

Photo credit: All photos by author.

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

Article in the Journal of Southern African Studies by Simbarashe Gukurume, Great Zimbabwe University & Innocent T. Mahiya, University of KwaZulu Natal 

Mobile money agents booths at Chivi Growth Point;
Photo Credit: Simbarashe Gukurume 

Abstract

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 space, currency conversion exchange rates, identification and charges. These are, however, unintended consequences of mobile money usage in Chivi.

Access Journal of South African Studies: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03057070.2020.1823682

To obtain digital copies of the full paper, email Simbarashe Gukurume, sgukurume1@gmail.com.

Read about the original IMTFI-funded research: http://www.imtfi.uci.edu/research/2015/mahiya_gukurume_2015.php#

Negotiating and Converting Money in Zimbabwe’s Multicurrency Environment

 By IMTFI Fellows Mahiya I.T and Gukurume S.

Hyperinflation

In 2009, under the banner of 'dollarization', Zimbabwe adopted a multicurrency system after experiencing protracted socio-economic and political quagmires and a world record hyperinflation exceeding a crescendo of 250 million percent in 2008. Under this multicurrency system, Zimbabwe adopted a basket of foreign currencies as official currencies. These included the United States Dollar, the South African Rand, the Botswana Pula, the British Pound and the Euro (and later on the Chinese Yuan) – all of which operated simultaneously in the economy. The beginnings of this multicurrency system coincided closely with the adoption and growth of mobile money services. This blog highlights findings from the 12-month long ethnographic research project that examined the socio-economic dynamics of balancing and negotiating the uses of multiple currencies in the wake of mobile money adoption. To gain a nuanced comprehension of the complex rituals involved in these currency conversions, data collection was done using qualitative ethnographic techniques such as participant observation and in-depth interviews with mobile money users and non-users, and key informants. Large and diversified sample from two communities – rural Chivi and urban Harare – allowed us to compare and holistically capture the complexities of mobile money politics as well as the temporalities of foreign currency conversions.

Multi-currency transactions prior to "dollarization" and the advent of mobile money services

In Chivi, a semi-arid rural community located in the southern part of Zimbabwe, most young men and women of working age migrate to close-by South Africa as legal and illegal migrant laborer or cross-border traders. Considerable remittance inflows from these migrants (locally called majonijoni) has led to a high circulation and usage of the South African rand in Chivi that predates the official adoption of the multicurrency system. 

Harare, on the other hand, being the capital, is the hub of economic transactions and where multiple currencies had been circulating illegally much prior to official dollarization. During the hyperinflationary era, the Roadport section of Harare was even referred to as the Zimbabwean “World Bank” due to the high prevalence of illicit transactions in foreign currencies that found their way in through informal remittance channels of the burgeoning Zimbabwean Diaspora. The crippling cash and liquidity crisis in the country, led mobile money transactions to arguably become the lifeblood of business transactions in Harare and Chivi. And several telecommunication companies providing mobile money services such as TextACash and NettCash (now rebranded as GetCash) have infiltrated the market and Econet’s EcoCash is the most widely used service in Zimbabwe. In Harare, where the government was actively encouraging cashless transactions, we found that many participants did not trust services provided by government controlled mobile operators such as Telecash and NetOne. As one of our respondents sarcastically asserted:

“…the government is about to close down due to bankruptcy, why would I buy a line owned by such a government… it will be a waste of money.”

Billboard for NettCash Mobile Money Service 

Social Capital, IDs and Trust in Mobile Money Transactions

Social capital and trust were important factors in transactions involving currency conversions especially for the rural people of Chivi who were using the US dollar for the first time and required social networks to i) confirm the currency was not counterfeit, ii) to circumvent regulations requiring identity verification based on national ID numbers, iii) and for the mobile phone to be physically present at the point of transaction. Due to convivial relations and social solidarity, mobile money agents often transacted without IDs and some clients even shared their secret pin number with the agents. Tino, a mobile money agent in Chivi explained:

…that young boy is my client’s grandson whom she sends to cash out some money here. I don’t ask for the identification document because I know them by name and even the ID number and above all I trust them. I have a number of such clients who always perform their transactions with me without their IDs.

In Harare, however, it was almost impossible to cash-out money or transact without ID and agents tended to be very strict. This may be because cases of fraud, fake money and theft were not uncommon in the big city. However, we noted that even though social solidarity and social capital were more pronounced in Chivi, villagers sometimes complained of being tricked and cheated due to their mobile money and foreign currency illiteracy.

Accepting and Rejecting Currencies

We observed that, while in Chivi the South African rand was widely accepted for everyday transactions, in Harare almost all retail shops and transport operators were reluctant to accept the rand. During our fieldwork, the value of the rand was unstable and volatile against the widely used US dollar, making it very precarious for businesses in Harare to transact in the rand. One of our participants in Harare, Evans, whose parents worked in South Africa, said:

My parents send me my school fees in rands through ‘EcoCash Diaspora’ but I have to convert it into dollars because no one is accepting rands these days even if you want to pay a taxi, buy tomatoes, groceries let alone paying school fees. I don’t know it just started recently there is nothing I can do.

EcoCash Client in Chivi

In sharp contrast, most businesses in Chivi including mobile money agents accepted the rand. This could be attributed to the large volume of cross border trade with South Africa. Most business operators in Chivi bought their products in South Africa and a large number of traders from Chivi commuted to South Africa on a weekly basis to buy goods for resale back in the community. In fact, Chivi closely mirrored its South African diaspora - most goods and clothes sold in the area were bought in Musina, a small border town in South Africa. One of our participants Mr Jonasi, a prominent businessman at Chivi’s growth point business centre who owns a grocery shop and a clothing shop, is also an EcoCash mobile money agent. We asked him which currency he prefers:

Of course the US dollar is more valuable compared to the rand but here we are not rigid. In all my businesses I accept both the rand and US dollar. You will go out of business if you reject the rand like they do in Harare. People here get most of their money in rands so say if you receive rands from South Africa and you want dollars to pay fees then I will convert it for you on the exchange rate of that day. I convert rands to dollars here everyday and the good thing is I buy my products in Musina in rands so I don’t make any loss by transacting in rands. 

Exchange Rate Fluidity, Conflicts and Calculative Risks

Exchange Rates in Chivi

Interestingly, we also observed informality and fluidity in the exchange rates especially in Chivi where people relied on information obtained from Zimbabwe-South Africa border. The exchange rate was not static but changed over time, varied from place to place and was often negotiated, which at times led to conflict and serious quarrels. We observed long and protracted discussions lasting ten to twenty minutes before currency conversions were decided upon and completed. For instance, Keresina, a female mobile money agent at Chivi turn-off along the Masvingo-Beit bridge highway got most of her clients from commuters and villagers. She said:

I had a nasty experience with one woman in the village, she thought I had cheated her because her husband had send her some US dollars through EcoCash but she wanted to buy grocery in Musina South Africa so I converted her dollars into rands. When she got to the border she was told a different exchange rate but you know these rates differ from place to place. So when she came back she confronted me and demanded more money - we ended up at the police station. From that day I just accept dollars only and I don’t convert unless it’s a person I know and we have agreed.

In Harare, the few people who accepted the rand and the Botswana Pula had to take calculative risks. First thing every morning, they gathered information on the current value of the rand from their social networks, which determined whether they would accept the rand on that particular day. We also observed that the prevailing cash shortages in the country almost paralyzed cash-out mobile money transactions as agents struggled to provide clients with cash. Driven by the crippling cash crisis, mobile money operators and foreign currency dealers also traded the dollar against itself. One dollar in cash from black market dealers and mobile money agents could be charged a premium and cost $1.07. Moreover, getting cash from a mobile operator was now being regarded as a favor and ‘appreciative’ clients would give small amounts of money (one or two dollars) to the agent for giving them cash. It became the norm for agents to ‘reserve’ cash for these clients. Some clients would even leave their phones and access pin codes with agents so that once cash was available, the agent could cash out on their behalf. This was in part fueled by banks imposing a maximum withdrawal of $500 per week due to the biting liquidity crunch. Other financial practices such as MMM Global have emerged where participants invest and donat money, particularly through EcoCash, and earned 30% interest, that some have framed as Ponzi schemes.

The Zimbabwean monetary ecosystem continues to transform on a daily basis. The government intends to introduce a surrogate local currency called ‘Bond Notes’ allegedly equivalent to the US dollar. This will undoubtedly influence and add new dimensions to mobile money adoption and currency conversions and in effect provide fertile ground for future investigation and research.

Read more in Mahiya and Gukurume's Final Report

Off the Charts: Session Two of the 2016 Conference

In the panel on "Ecologies in Crisis: Transferring, Converting and Marketing Value in Unstable Times" with discussant Rosa Akbari of the International Rescue Committee stories of crisis and resilience turned out to encompass a wide variety of political and natural disasters.  As Akbari noted, when it comes to understanding creative responses to precarity in developing economies from the position of the developed world, "we have a lot more to learn from them."  The first presentation on "Managing, negotiating, and converting 'currency' in daily life in a multicurrency environment of Zimbabwe" by Innocent Tonderai Mahiya of Women's University in Africa and Simbarashe Gukurume of the University of Cape Town grappled with the effects of a "serious economic crisis," where "the worst inflation in the world for a country not at war" had created a country of "poor billionaires," where daily 50 thousand withdrawal limits cripples those earning salaries of 50 billion units in local currency.

The research team provided an overview of money providers.  EcoCash, the most widely used mobile money service in the country, launched in 2011.  It was subsequently joined by NetOne, which introduced the government-controlled OneWallet in 2013.  With Telecash, which is now the second-largest provider in the country, there are three giant telecommunication companies joined by other stakeholders and players in a growth environment in which the largest companies have over six million subscribers.  Thus this national mobile money environment could be compared in scale to the territories of the M-PESA model, which the research team attributed to the rapid introduction of mobile money services, which rapidly expanded in urban and rural areas.  Additionally mobile networks are seen as reliable by informants with an increased number of players in mobile money sectors.  Access is added by ubiquitous advertising including omnibuses and commercials on government radio and television.

The team's field site in Chivi was one of first areas to adopt foreign currency because of immigration flows creating a sending population to the community.  With so many from Chivi migrating to South Africa, there were formal and informal channels for currency alternatives long before the government adopted the multi-currency system, particularly with the circulation of the rand.  The team's  methodology was primarily qualitative, based on ethnographic participant observation with  interviews with clients and agents of mobile money services and informal conversations with villagers.  In addition to the rand, the US dollar was a common currency, but there was also the presence of the Chinese yuan.  Researchers were interested in the process which is negotiated during the exchange and features that include high social solidarity and the deployment of social capital.  Sometimes this involved the subverting of regulatory restrictions, as when elderly clients would sometimes send grandchildren to negotiate on their behalf or attempt transactions without documents by deploying social understanding mechanisms.  They also considered types of mobile money agents and the politics of space, because some operate in makeshift booths, while others are run out of shops.

"Financial Security: Laborers’ Transfer of Value from Karachi’s Marketplaces to Tribal War Zones in Pakistan" by Noman Baig of Habib University Pakhtun offered the perspectives of many participants living in contested territories under threat of drone strikes.  The three major perspectives were those of impoverished laborers, state officials, and actors with a corporate point of view  This research explored "the value transfer system of ethnic Pakhtun migrants working on daily wages in Karachi’s marketplaces." Baig chose to tackle the following research questions: "How do laborers transfer value from the city of Karachi to villages and tribal areas of Pakistan?" "How does state counter-terrorist surveillance impact laborers’ traditional value transfer system?" and "How are emerging financial technologies such as branchless banking shaping customary ways of handling money in Karachi’s marketplace?" Baig aspired to the ideals of the "good anthropologist" by attending to "their interactions with financial instruments such as branchless banking" and borrowing and credit practices "within their kinship, religious, and ethnic networks." His methodology emphasized a "deep hanging out with the laboring class" that was enhanced with semi-structured interviews.  He drew on many sources of information for his study to understand the experiences of his core group of laborers and migrants, including retail agents, Easypaisa staff, State Bank of Pakistan representatives, employees of the Habib Metropolitan Bank, currency dealers, and money lenders.

In negotiating alternatives, the Pakistan Post offered money orders, which were extremely slow but carried low fees.  Commercial banks charge significant transfer fee and might take days.  There were a number of appealing reasons to rely on truck and bus drivers who simply carry cash to far flung villages. Finally a local shopkeeper/moneylender could serve as an intermediary: if a laborer chooses to deliver cash in Karachi, the equivalent amount of food ration can be delivered to the laborer’s house in a village.   In other words, in this scenario,  it  was not physical currency but value that gets transferred. Choices were often dictated by generational differences and issues of trust and kinship
.
Easypaisa is emerging financial instrument with 250,000 retail agencies and 22 franchises in Karachi. It only takes two days to get a franchise, although it used to take 15 days.  The major requirement is to have to have a physical roof, so agents are not just sitting on a sidewalk.

Such mobile financial services facilitate dramatic changes around existing community bonds, which could also create disruptions in an already disrupted environment. The use of digital financial instruments might seem to offer relative autonomy, Baig argued, but that autonomy could also risk greater precocity.  A person becomes "more vulnerable to economic crisis" but is "also released from embedded networks of kinship."  These changes also encompass changing gender dynamics and disrupt existing systems of home delivery through kinship.

This disintermediation might be appealing when "laborers hesitate to visit banks" that are too "fancy and glittery."  In place of banks, retail agents offer banking services to the underprivileged, but laborers’ income gets incorporated into financial logics far beyond Karachi. "So they become included but they stay excluded." In other words, "financial inclusion and physical exclusion happens simultaneously," because "financial categorization reproduces social hierarchies" in the "network paradox of capitalism" that "allows you in but excludes you also."  Baig insists that such people aren't really "unbanked" but they are banked "in their own ways."

He cautioned that regulation of Hawala by the state plays a significant role as existing networks are "demonized" and the "alternate of corporate technologies" is lauded.  He explained that Western Union "became popular after 9/11," because the informal system was seen as illegal, but "profit comes to Wall Street."  In his view of the "financial ecology" he is interested in "how a laborer in bazaar in Karachi is connected" to the U.S. sector. He also expressed his concerns that "the discourse of financial inclusion gives a negative valuation to everyday forms of money management" particularly "under the rubric of security and counter-terrorism."

According to the presenter, "Strange Intersections: Humans, Technology and Disaster in a Himalayan Valley (Nepal)" by Kabir Mansingh Heimsath of Lewis & Clark College could just as easily be retitled "strange disjunctions."  The commodity Heimsath focused upon in his IMTFI research is an unusual one: the caterpillar fungus yarta.  He explained how his interest in "the experience of space and place" shaped a relatively "new project on South side of the Himalayas."  Although he hasn't "done focused fieldwork yet," the research questions began to emerge in late June 2013 from a conversation in back of vehicle going to Manang.  He described interacting with a "spotlessly dressed" man "just as monsoons were beginning." When he glanced down at the man's baggage, the man explained that he was going up to a remote region to sell caterpillar fungus, because he was told prices were higher in a remote valley than up in metropole.  Heimsath puzzled over the "weird commodity chain" of "taking something out and bringing it back again."

He described how Manang was culturally Tibetan but part of Nepal with a history of trade and smuggling.  Because of a large exodus to Katmandu, the region had "huge ostentatious houses based on money they made with international trade," as well as financial streams from trekking tourism and yartsa.  He characterized the area as "cosmopolitan for decades," because Yartsa was already comparable to the price of gold and"almost anyone can pick it." He described himself as working "in the footsteps of Anna Tsing whose 2009 article on mushroom foragers was formative for his work. He also credited the ideas of Tim Ingold on space and place as helpful for not conceptualizing them as an "empty passive category" containing place.  He noted his own "preference in thinking about pathways and movements," so that space was"always coming into being through pathways, movements.

This product of "summer grass" and "winter worms" grows in human influenced landscapes and yak pathways. Foragers never sell directly to the international market, because there are several levels of middlemen. "Exporters aren't even on map," because there are smugglers as well as buyers and exporters.  Yarta is used primarily as gift item among elites like Tsing's mushroom mappings.  In considering the overlap with tourist networks, he asked if it an intersection or lanes on the highway.  He aspires to do a "similar mapping for road the itself," because in Nepal half of all roads have been built in last decade in response to a "teleological development paradigm" in which "we build the road, and everything else will be fine."  As he exclaimed, "these networks existed before the road got there, and the money was there before the road, so why do we need the road?"  )He pointed out that hydropower was also as paradigmatic development project.)  His planned research would look at how the earthquake has effected all of this.

In the question and answer session, participants developed the theme of "following the money" and the dynamics of inclusion and exclusion in a group largely skeptical of the development paradigm.