Digital Myths and the Making of a Moral Economy
In “The Digital Sublime,” Mosco argues that ‘mythmaking,’ that is the existance of myth-like narratives about new technologies and their benefits, is an important part of the introduction of such technologies around the world. He further suggests that the actual potential of any technology is truly realized only after it has lost its novelty and entered “the prosaic world of banality” (Mosco 2005). We build on Mosco’s idea of myth as a force shaping discourses around the introduction of new technologies, and ask if in fact these myths don’t continue to play a role even after the technology becomes banal. We argue that the claims made in these myths persist long after the initial mythmaking phase, because of their influence on the “moral economy” within which technologies are wielded everyday.
We use the case of mobile money platforms to support our argument. Focusing on the claims made by mobile money platforms and interventions in the context of financial inclusion —such as that the one that mobile money can bring financial services to the “unbanked” and help them avoid intermediaries and make more of their money — we trace how broader myths around digital technologies find their way into these claims. We then go on to briefly examine the implications of these claims and mythology for the functioning of these platforms in practice. We suggest that the value placed on disintermediation in the “myth” around mobile money platforms continues to shape how intermediaries are treated and valued within the mobile money ecology, even after mobile money platforms themselves have become a part of people’s everyday lives.
Our focus on intermediaries in mobile money services builds on findings from the Information and Communication Technologies and Development (ICTD) literature on intermediaries as facilitators of ICT adoption and use. This body of work shows that with the diffusion of ICT, such facilitators are not eliminated, even as their roles may change. Recent work on intermediaries shows the importance of their social identity (e.g. gender, class, caste) and how it shapes their trustworthiness, reliability and overall efficacy. Moreover, intermediaries perform a double intermediation: not only between users and technology, but also between the multiple systems of values represented by ICT to different actors in their community. They are thus connecting agents that belong to different networks, and identify with each as required. Because they belong to different sets of social rules, their identities are constantly shifting, and their allegiance to the different networks changes according to the changing circumstances.
In the mobile money literature, however, the focus is still firmly on end-users, their acceptance/attitude towards the technology and technical issues, and the potential for disintermediation represented by digital. Where the popularity of intermediaries is recognized, it is primarily treated as an anomaly to be explained (and rectified). We aim at unpacking mobile money claims and practices using a moral economy lens, that is “a consistent traditional view of social norms and obligations, of the proper economic functions of several parties within the community” (Thompson, 1971:79), in order to understand what and who is considered valuable in the mobile money space and for what reasons. To what extent has the mythical narrative that associates digital platforms with increased efficiency, reduced corruption and enhanced service delivery – and the consequent perception of the intermediary as a villain who impedes these goals – shaped a moral economy that values efficiency, and the removal of human discretion in transactions?
We draw from our on-going ethnographic fieldwork of intermediaries and digital technologies in India (Kerala) and in Myanmar. Mobile phones have been in widespread use in India for more than a decade, while they are just beginning to become common in Myanmar. We contrast similar sites—small towns with diverse populations—in these two countries, to better understand the contextual heterogeneity that characterizes the role that intermediaries play in different uses of digital technologies and mobile financial services. To examine how these roles and practices are shaped by claims about the technology in the two countries, we also study financial inclusion reports, as well as financial inclusion-related claims and plans of mobile platform providers in both countries
In keeping with the theme of this mini-conference, our paper will investigate how moral economies are reshaped by the introduction of digital technologies. However, rather than focus solely on this moral economy as a given, and as drawing on current practices, we link these to the claims associated with these technologies and how such claims played a role in the very construction of this moral economy.
References
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