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#

Rethinking saving: Indian ceremonial gifts as relational and reproductive saving

Article in the Journal of Cultural Economy by Isabelle Guérin, IRD-CESSMA, Paris, France; Govindan Venkatasubramanian & Santosh Kumar, French Institute of Pondicherry, Pondicherry, India

Dalit Marriage Ceremony from a peri-urban village.
Photo credit: Santosh Kumar

Abstract

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 push people into financial inclusion, the social, symbolic, cultural and political aspects of diverse forms of financial mediation deserve our full attention.

Notebook for a Tamil puberty ceremony, Manjal Neerattu Vizha.
Photo credit: Isabelle Guérin  

Access Journal of Cultural Economy:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17530350.2019.1583594

Access pre-print version (click top-right corner for download): https://hal-inalco.archives-ouvertes.fr/ird-02112848/

Read up on original IMTFI-funded research project:
https://www.imtfi.uci.edu/research/2015/govindan_guerin_2015.php#