Digitalization of money easily becomes a mechanism of exclusion

New podcast explores the impact that the global trend towards digitalizing economies has on communities that are poor and highly cash dependent.

In this episode of the American podcast AnthroPod, the guest producers, Camilla Ida Ravnbøl and Marie Kolling, discuss the limitations that a cashless economy presents to cash-dependent groups. They take the listener on a journey to Denmark’s largest music festival, the Roskilde Festival, which went cashless in 2017, on par with current developments in Denmark where more than 80 per cent of all transactions are already cashless.

At the festival, poor Roma migrants earn their cash income from the deposit on refundable bottles and cans, which provides a vital revenue for them and their families in Romania. They were at first excluded from this revenue, but the festival is trying to accommodate them, and this episode explains how as well as some unforeseen advantages of cashlessness that the migrants have experienced.

AnthroPod is produced by the Society for Cultural Anthropology. Listen to the podcast here- or watch the trailer: