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“It is easy for women to ask!†: Gender and digital finance in Kenya

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  • Sibel Kusimba

Abstract

This article examines the role of gender in the use of digital finance in Kenya, including the well†known case of mobile money but also the emerging use of smartphone apps, payment tills, digital credit services, and digital fund†raising computer programs. Development professionals have explicitly feminist goals in bringing digital finance to women in the Global South. In several recent reports, they outline the belief that gender norms are a barrier to women's use of finance. They hope digital finance will bring women agency and control over money and consequently shift restrictive gender norms. This article offers a critique of these assumptions based on ethnographic conversations, a diary exercise, and network self†portraiture conducted in Kenya in 2016 among both rural farmers and urbanites. Adopting a distributed agency perspective, the ethnographic study demonstrates that Kenyan women and men use digital finance not to seek individual control of their money but to produce themselves as connected and trustworthy members of financial groups and collectivities. Gender norms may not hinder women from finance but rather enhance and deepen women's and men's financial relationships and bring women success in amassing funds.

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  • Sibel Kusimba, 2018. "“It is easy for women to ask!†: Gender and digital finance in Kenya," Economic Anthropology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 5(2), pages 247-260, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ecanth:v:5:y:2018:i:2:p:247-260
    DOI: 10.1002/sea2.12121
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Sibel Kusimba & Yang Yang & Nitesh Chawla, 2016. "Hearthholds of mobile money in western Kenya," Economic Anthropology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 3(2), pages 266-279, June.
    2. Susan Johnson, 2017. "We Don’t Have This Is Mine and This Is His’: Managing Money and The Character of Conjugality in Kenya," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(5), pages 755-768, May.
    3. Supriya Garikipati & Susan Johnson & Isabelle Guérin & Ariane Szafarz, 2017. "Microfinance and Gender: Issues, Challenges and The Road Ahead," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(5), pages 641-648, May.
    4. Lauren A. Hayes, 2017. "The hidden labor of repayment: Women, credit, and strategies of microenterprise in northern Honduras," Economic Anthropology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 4(1), pages 22-36, January.
    5. World Bank, 2015. "The Little Data Book on Financial Development 2015/2016," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 22553, December.
    6. Nina Bandelj, 2012. "Relational Work and Economic Sociology," Politics & Society, , vol. 40(2), pages 175-201, June.
    7. World Bank, 2015. "The Little Data Book on Financial Inclusion 2015," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 21636, December.
    8. Abhijit Banerjee & Esther Duflo & Rachel Glennerster & Cynthia Kinnan, 2015. "The Miracle of Microfinance? Evidence from a Randomized Evaluation," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 7(1), pages 22-53, January.
    9. World Bank, 2015. "The Little Data Book 2015," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 21635, December.
    10. Bina Agarwal, 1997. "''Bargaining'' and Gender Relations: Within and Beyond the Household," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 3(1), pages 1-51.
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    Cited by:

    1. Smitha Radhakrishnan, 2018. "Of loans and livelihoods: Gendered “social work†in urban India," Economic Anthropology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 5(2), pages 235-246, June.
    2. Xiuxiu Jiang & Xia Wang & Jia Ren & Zhimin Xie, 2021. "The Nexus between Digital Finance and Economic Development: Evidence from China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(13), pages 1-17, June.
    3. Aaron Z. Pitluck & Fabio Mattioli & Daniel Souleles, 2018. "Finance beyond function: Three causal explanations for financialization," Economic Anthropology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 5(2), pages 157-171, June.
    4. Ozili, Peterson K, 2020. "Comparing digital finance in the UK, US, India and Nigeria," MPRA Paper 104498, University Library of Munich, Germany.

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