Rentier infrastructure: Debt, data, & sovereignty in Kenya

Watch the recording here

 

An explosion of mobile phone-based lending in Kenya is transforming relations between credit and debt, as digital data is used to create credit scores for millions of low-income borrowers. For proponents of 'financial inclusion,' such an industry reflects the possibility of using private business for public good, not least through public-private partnerships for the development of digital infrastructures. Moreover, the use of call records, mobile money transactions, and location data is said to provide a means for lending to populations previously considered too risky or unprofitable.

At this webinar, Kevin Donovan, drawing on work with Emma Park, reframes such enthusiasm as an instance of rentier capitalism, in which digital infrastructure provides the means for the extraction of both data and capital. Looking to the political economy, materiality, and ideology of digital infrastructure shows how so-called 'surplus populations' are today the foundation for frontiers of accumulation.

Kevin Donovan is a Lecturer in African Studies & International Development at the Centre for African Studies at Edinburgh University. He is an anthropologist and historian of East Africa working in the fields of economic and political anthropology, African history, and science & technology studies.

The webinar is part of the Infrastructure as analytical approach series where we explore the potential and implications of infrastructure analysis through state-of-the art talks by leading scholars.

Speakers
Kevin Donovan, Lecturer, African Studies & International Development
Jethro Norman, Postdoc, DIIS

Programme
15.00-15.05      Welcome and introduction, Jethro Norman
15.05-15.25      Rentier Infrastructure: Debt, Data, & Sovereignty in Kenya, Kevin Donovan
15.25-15.45     Q&A - chair Jethro Norman
 

Recorded on Tuesday 17 November 2020, 15.00-15.45 on Zoom