On recentring women鈥檚 grassroots struggles to decolonise FinTech narratives

serenanatileLeave a comment

Drawing realised by artist Pawel Kuczy艅ski for Serena Natile’s book

I came to the study of fintech as a feminist socio-legal scholar researching the gender dynamics of South-South migration. While doing fieldwork in Kenya for my PhD in 2012, I came across M-Pesa, a mobile money service used by locals as an instrument for transferring money from urban to rural areas. From the start of my research in 2011 to the completion of my PhD in 2016, ongoing studies on M-Pesa were mainly celebratory. It was acclaimed as an innovative instrument for poverty reduction, development, and gender equality and was enthusiastically supported by donors and international financial institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), as well as by tech entrepreneurs and corporate philanthropy. Its success story was so uncontested that I decided to change my research question to focus on the gender dynamics of digital financial inclusion, rather than on my initial interest, migration.

The key narrative of M-Pesa鈥檚 success in terms of gender equality was, and still is, that it facilitates women鈥檚 access to financial services, providing them with a variety of opportunities to improve their own livelihoods and those of their families, their communities, and ultimately their countries. In the specific case of M-Pesa, a basic-mobile-phone-enabled money transfer service is considered more accessible and available than transferring money via mainstream financial institutions such as banks, and more reliable and secure than informal finance channels such as moneylenders or the handling of cash via rotating credit and savings associations (ROSCAs). This claim is based on three assumptions: first, that women have less access to financial services than men have; second, that women would use their access to finance to support not only themselves but also their families and communities; and third, that digital financial services are better than informal financial channels because they overcome the limits of cash, ensuring traceability and security. These assumptions motivated advocacy and investment in digital financial inclusion projects and the creation of ad hoc programmes and institutions, all strongly focused on the question of how digital technology can be used to facilitate women鈥檚 access to financial services.

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Decolonising for Whom? Recentring grassroots struggles and voices in the 鈥榙ecolonising fintech鈥� narrative

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By and

Over the last few years 鈥榙ecolonisation鈥� has become an increasingly popular subject in Western academia. Broadly considered the process of recognising and undoing the intellectual and institutional structures that enabled and maintain the reproduction of imperial power, calls for decolonisation have opened uncomfortable debates about epistemological privilege, forcing us to confront biases and injustices and to revisit hidden histories and visions for the future. While these debates remain essential, particularly at a time of political authoritarianism, racism, and violence, they also highlight the contradictions in Western academia between decolonisation as a fashionable conceptual trend and its real commitment to justice.

In formerly colonised communities, generational consciousness of colonial oppression and struggles to recover land, property, wealth, and political institutions have created a lived experience of the long-term consequences of colonialism, usually conceptualised as 鈥榗oloniality鈥�, that is not a concept but a reality. This experience has shaped movements and protests in the Global South, including within universities. An example is the movement in South Africa, which followed the significant decline of government subsidisation of universities with discriminatory consequences for the disadvantaged Black population without historical wealth and economic privilege. Similar protests concern the recognition of and fight against pillars of colonial power including philanthropists such as British colonialist Cecil , who accumulated wealth by appropriating land, enslaving people and extracting resources, and used that wealth to shape knowledge production.

Other significant protests involve resistance against such as Western financial infrastructures, corporations and international institutions i.e. the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. A  recent example is the ongoing youth-led (Gen Z) round of protests in Kenya , motivated by demands to reject the IMF-supported that, if approved, would have imposed a fresh round of government cuts to basic services and austerity measures on Kenyans. The young people protesting in the streets of Nairobi showed awareness of the colonial legacy and long-term impact of the 1980s structural adjustment policies (SAPs) on the lives of people 鈥� particularly those at the lower end of the income distribution, and demanded economic sovereignty as the only way to achieve social justice. The protests were successful in impeding the adoption of the Bill, but many young people paid with their lives, as the government deployed a deadly military response to the protests. 

The demands for decolonisation are based on ending economic and epistemological oppression, two interrelated aims, each grounded in colonialism. Reclaiming knowledge and the economic means that allow its production and dissemination has always been at the centre of decolonisation as an opportunity to remake societies, nations, and the world itself for the better. In its fight for justice, decolonisation is a grassroots struggle against colonial and neo-colonial rulers and rules, as well as against all global and local actors and structures that enable and reinforce those rules. For this reason, grassroots voices need to be at the centre of any decolonisation project.

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Anti-Colonial Solutions to climate change

Max AjlLeave a comment

When we discuss the climate crisis in economics, we are often confronted with a debate resting on technical solutions, emissions paths, and energy use: a certain amount of time to go from coal to turbines means a certain amount of carbon dioxide emitted, which means a certain likely degree of global temperature change. In environmental economics, climate change and its associated environmental problems are often framed as 鈥榚xternalities鈥�; that is, unfortunate and unintended spillovers caused by market mechanisms. Often, social issues are taken into account within this narrative through sunny phrases like 鈥渟ustainable development鈥� or 鈥渏ust transition.鈥� The responsible parties are often individuals, states, or firms that are often thought to take action within the market. What does this debate look like if we take two different questions as starting points: not how to solve the climate crisis through market mechanisms and regulation, but how to solve the climate crisis while attending to the colonial legacy and exiting from contemporary neo-colonial accumulation patterns? Let us take a look.

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Misreading Indigenous Politics: A Eulogy for the Eurocentric Left

davidteminLeave a comment

Response to

In the latest issue of the London Review of Books under the title of 鈥淩ed Power: Indigenous Political Strategies,鈥� Thomas Meaney has written a review of three recent award-winning books by historians of Native North America: Pekka H盲m盲l盲inen鈥檚 Indigenous Continent; Ned Blackhawk鈥檚 The Rediscovery of America; and Nick Estes Our History is the Future. In some ways, the review is impressively learned. Meaney uses the occasion to canvass a generations-spanning array of scholarship on the history of Native North America and engages figures, events, and historiographic questions of which only a very small body of Native and non-native scholars on these topics are even aware.

Marks of erudition aside, Meaney is out to weave together a broader narrative that extends beyond the historical bona fides of these books. The key moment in setting up this narrative comes after Meaney has raised his readers鈥� hopes by opening with a quite historically literate summary of European settler expansionism and Indigenous peoples鈥� responses to it. In the paragraph that then really begins the substance of his review, Meaney pivots: 鈥渂ut recent roadmaps of the historiography either sidestep material questions or mistake a colonized mindset for progressivist one.鈥� This is where Meaney divides the three books under review into three categories of political and historical errors: H盲m盲l盲inen鈥檚 revisionist history overstretches the notion of 鈥渆mpire鈥� in his account of 鈥淚ndigenous power鈥� by labeling the Lakota (and in earlier work, the Comanche) as such. (I agree with this critique, so I leave it aside in this review). Blackhawk represents a trend of scholars of Native history and federal Indian law who 鈥渉ave so thoroughly internalized constitutional ideology that they seem not to notice how their cause has been instrumentalized by the most fanatically libertarian segment of American society.鈥� And finally, 鈥渁 nominally [!] left-wing Native scholarship鈥� that romanticizes Indigenous experiences, engaging in a politics of authenticity. The latter is how Meaney represents the work of Lakota scholar Nick Estes.

After establishing these categories, Meaney argues that these various limitations are 鈥渁ll the more regrettable because the 20th century offered examples of Indigenous co-operation with the left, cases contemporary political theorists have examined with more care than their historian peers.鈥� This is a strange thing to assert at the outset, given that there was no recognizable anticolonial 鈥渓eft鈥� in the US settler colony that Native nations could possibly have 鈥渃ooperated鈥� with in the 19th century. The consensus on the necessity and inevitability of land dispossession and structural predation cut across almost all categories of white society, including almost all of those on the far left of the political spectrum. Moreover, this included, as many others have noted, some key figures in the history of African-American political thought such as Douglas and Du Bois. What these historians鈥攑articularly Blackhawk and Estes鈥攁sk us to do is to suspend some assumptions about what constitutes the commitments of 鈥渢he left鈥� at all, given the deep investments of American republicanism and many later iterations of US leftism (let alone the liberalism of the Democratic Party) in colonial dispossession or just racialized indifference.

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Is It Possible to 鈥楧ecolonize鈥� Economics?*

Eiman Zein-ElabdinLeave a comment

Calls for decolonizing disciplines, fields, even businesses have proliferated. The goals and meaning are not always clear, but any decolonizing process necessarily entails deconstructive and reconstructive tasks. In Economics, the first task must challenge dominant and domineering paradigms 鈥� orthodox and heterodox 鈥� and expose mechanisms of exclusion in the profession (Zein-Elabdin and Charusheela 2004). The constructive task, at least in part, consists of developing a theoretical vocabulary of economic meaning and well-being based on contemporary understandings of 鈥榲alue鈥� and its genetic relationship to questions of power and justice. Amartya Sen has aptly noted that 鈥渨hat moves us, reasonably enough, is not the realization that the world falls short of being completely just 鈥� which few of us expect 鈥� but that there are clearly remediable injustices around us which we want to eliminate鈥� (2009). I would argue that historical injustices, such as those brought about by colonialism or other forms of lasting domination, cannot be remedied without reconstructing the meaning of economic value and valuation. Confronting value, power, and justice as a mutually constitutive problem is a necessary step for any project of 鈥榙ecolonizing鈥� Economics.

More than a century ago, Thorstein Veblen noted that 鈥渆conomics is helplessly behind the times鈥� (1898). His remark then was made in reference to the rise of Anthropology and new biological sciences. Today, this statement could well serve to depict the sluggishness of Economics to engage with postcolonial critique. Nowhere is this engagement more needed than in theories of value where a contemporary view is lacking. Value is a dauntingly complex concept; it is interpretive rather than discoverable. For the sake of this argument, I broadly frame it as a reference to what enables material sustenance and general well-being. Among other things, a new theoretical framework must seek to: a) revalue different types of work, especially those performed by women and ethnic and cultural subalterns; b) recalibrate 鈥榟umans鈥� relationship with the 鈥榥atural鈥� world; and c) redefine 鈥榩oor鈥� countries鈥� contribution to life in 鈥榬ich鈥� parts of the globe. So far, most economists have studied social disparities in income and wealth, ecological degradation, and global inequality as analytically separable problems without much attention to their common foundational reliance on major concepts of value inherited from industrial European modernity. In this brief commentary, I suggest that new, less 鈥渂ehind the times鈥� interpretations of value in Economics are long overdue.

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Is women鈥檚 access to land path dependent? Evidence from Punjab (Pakistan)

hanazahirLeave a comment

Women have historically been excluded from formal land rights in the Indian subcontinent. For its rural population, land remains the most prevalent and significant asset, making bequests of land parcels the main channel through which women can acquire land (Gazdar, 2003; Nelson, 2011; Agarwal, 1994).  Customary land rights prevented inheritance along gendered lines and in colonial times, these laws were codified to prevent the sale and purchase of land parcels (Nelson, 2011). To what extent and how have such gendered patterns of land ownership persisted in different areas of Punjab in Pakistan? To what extent is there path dependence in gendered land ownership? Those are the research questions I鈥檒l tackle in this blog post.

In 2015, the Government of Punjab introduced a series of reforms aimed at enforcing women鈥檚 existing legal land rights in the process of inheritance. One enforcement mechanism introduced was making it the responsibility of local revenue officials to ensure that after the death of a landed individual, each heir would be transferred their inherited share in the land parcel by revenue officials even if the family did not initiate an inheritance mutation process. In addition, paper-based land records originating from the era of British colonial rule were digitized and stored in a central database. The new system made it mandatory to conduct in-person biometric verification of all heirs (male and female) of the deceased for an inheritance mutation case to move forward with the official transfer of land parcels. The introduction of these enforcement mechanisms made an historically exclusive inheritance mutation process more inclusive towards women. But fieldwork suggests that previous patterns of land ownership continue to be repeated in Punjab putting women at a disadvantage. In this blog post I unpack some of these findings, which raise questions about land reform alone as the solution to gendered division of land ownership. Instead, I find that the manner in which old patronage structures interacted with the British colonial system has had lasting implications on the way in which land is distributed.

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Post-Conflict Recovery and Trade Explainer

Regions RefocusLeave a comment

The Gender and Trade Coalition was initiated in 2018 by feminist and progressive activists to put forward feminist trade analysis and advocate for equitable trade policy.

This article is the second in a series of short, Q&A format 鈥榚xplainers鈥� unpacking key trade issues produced for the Gender and Trade Coalition by Regions Refocus. It was written by Senani Dehigolla (Regions Refocus), Erica Levenson (Regions Refocus), Anita Nayar (Regions Refocus), Nela Porobi膰 (WILPF), and Fatimah Kelleher (Nawi鈥揂frifem Macroeconomics Collective). Read the full article and catch up on past explainers .

  1. Does Trade Enhance Post-Conflict Recovery?

Post-conflict contexts can refer to a spectrum of situations of violent political conflict (both inter-state and within states) which share similar considerations for reconstruction and development. Countries recovering from conflict wrestle with the challenges of sustaining peace while restoring their economies, rebuilding devastated social and physical infrastructure, and providing basic services to people whose lives have been upended by displacement and insurmountable loss (Cohn and Duncanson 2020; Mallett and Pain 2018). Many realities do not reflect the static term ‘post-conflict’, as conflicts can restart and end at different times in different parts of a country (Mallett and Pain 2018; Turner, Aginam and Popovski 2008). While trade may provide opportunities for exports and economic growth, unfettered trade liberalization can be counter-productive to domestic industries鈥� recovery and does not necessarily benefit affected populations or lead to lasting peace (Kurtenbach and Rettberg 2018; Langer and Brown 2016; Oxfam 2007).

According to the infamous McDonald’s theory of peace, no two countries that both have a McDonald’s have ever fought a war against each other; this is because they are assumed to engage in free trade with one another and, therefore, a war would threaten both of their economies (Friedman 2000). Adhering to this theory, the World Trade Organization (WTO) Trade for Peace Programme highlights the role of trade and economic integration in promoting peace and security. It presents post-conflict contexts as a new opportunity to generate profit for multinational corporations (MNCs) based on the argument that integration into the multilateral trading system leads to stability and economic well-being.

In reality, turning post-conflict recovery into a one-size-fits-all outcome can lead to violent and incomplete re-integration into the global economy (Kurtenbach and Rettberg 2018; Langer and Brown 2016; Mallett and Pain 2018). This directly affects disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) programs on the ground which are critical to rebuilding post-conflict societies (Woodward 2013). Conflict can be further fueled by economic activities, with MNCs at worst capitalizing on conflict and post-conflict contexts to increase land grabs and labor rights violations, and at best continuing with business as usual despite the conflict (see for example Abed and Kelleher 2022; Frynas and Wood 2001).

Opening recovering domestic industries to highly competitive global markets can lead to the elimination of local economic actors and the further weakening of domestic industries, which deepens inequalities within and between countries (Krpec and Hodulak 2019). Even while some post-conflict countries such as Sri Lanka and Uganda have benefited from trade liberalization according to macroeconomic indicators, their GDP growth has failed to produce jobs for domestic populations, thereby neglecting to heal post-conflict wounds (Mallett and Pain 2018, 265). While trade liberalization may facilitate reintegration into the economic system, the same cannot be said for trade liberalization鈥檚 ability to facilitate the recovery of 鈥渢he conditions of people鈥檚 lives nor a society鈥檚 recovery from war鈥� (Cohn and Duncanson 2020, 5).

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Gender and Trade Explainer

Regions RefocusLeave a comment

The Gender and Trade Coalition was initiated in 2018 by feminist and progressive activists to put forward feminist trade analysis and advocate for equitable trade policy. This article is the first in a series of short, Q&A format 鈥榚xplainers鈥� unpacking key trade issues produced for the Gender and Trade Coalition by Regions Refocus. It was written by Erica Levenson (Regions Refocus) with inputs from Fatimah Kelleher (Nawi鈥揂frifem Macroeconomics Collective), Mariama Williams (ILE), Hien Nguyen Thi (APWLD), and Senani Dehigolla (Regions Refocus). Read the full article .

  1. How Are Gender and Trade Connected?

At the core of the modern global economy is an array of trade and investment rules that have been designed by developed countries鈥� elites and corporations. These interlinked rules reinforce the others鈥� impacts on national economies, enabled by international finance and trade institutions such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), and World Trade Organization (WTO) as enforcement mechanisms. From worsening human rights violations to degradation of the environment, the effects of trade and investment regimes impact every aspect of women鈥檚 lives, exacerbating and creating inequalities based on hierarchies of class, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and gender identity.

Behind the scenes of global economic policymaking spaces, corporations and the financial sector set the policy menu: liberalization, deregulation, and privatization. Through predatory loan conditionalities, trade agreements, and other practices, international finance and trade institutions have enforced these policies and created 鈥榚nabling environments鈥� for foreign investments. Trade tariffs have been lowered; investment possibilities and controls have been liberalized; and regulations on the financial sector, markets, and corporations have been dismantled while at the same time the rights of major corporations (especially intellectual property) have been increased (Aguirre, Eick, and Reese 2006; Hathaway 2020; Hursh and Henderson 2011). Cheap imports are dumped by transnational corporations and their subsidiaries, primary commodity export dependence is perpetuated, public goods and services are privatized, and social protections are cut, among other things (Hormeku-Ajei et al. 2022). These are the effects of 鈥榮uccessful鈥� neoliberal policies, and in particular trade liberalization.

The manifestations of deeply unequal trade and investment governance regimes can be seen in worsening poverty rates and gender inequality; widening gaps between the world鈥檚 richest and poorest countries, and the richest and poorest people; and adverse impacts on supposedly inalienable human rights, including access to education, secure housing, food security, and healthcare (Koechlin 2013; Navarro 2007; OHCHR 2015; Western et al. 2016). The severe impacts of trade and investment rules have been increasingly borne by people in developing countries, especially women (Grzanka, Mann, and Elliott 2016; Pearson 2019; UNCTAD 2014; UNCTAD and UN Women 2020).

Contemporary trade intensification, expansion, and privatization in the modern global economy relies on the systematic exploitation of women. Women form the backbone of the economy, in terms of both production and domestic labor: women are systematically underpaid, occupationally segregated, and marginalized, and their domestic labor is invisibilized and devalued. Gender inequality is not a question of happenstance but rather something that is necessary to the current function of the economy, in particular to trade. A critical analysis of trade from a feminist lens proves the urgency of recognizing the crucial role that gender inequality plays in sustaining global and national economies and illuminates key areas that serve as opportunities for policy interventions.

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