Hi All
Join the Third Space group as we present a talk by our visiting scholar, Prof. Silvia Masiero from Loughborough University. She will present her recent work on the cashless economy in India and its impact on informal communities, including critiquing the design of new digital systems.
Open to the public! Please forward to interested groups or individuals.
*Speaker: Silvia Masiero, *Loughborough University *Details: Room BA 5187 at *Bahen Centre, 40 St.George Street *Time: Thursday, March 12, 2020, from 4 pm to 6 pm*
*Talk Title: *Data-induced injustices: Questioning the orthodoxy of cashlessness for development
*Abstract: * India's demonetisation in November 2016 anticipated the country's shift towards a 'cashless' economy, designed to combat illegal money flows by making transactions traceable through digital technologies. As diffusion of cashless transactions has rapidly increased, it is important to understand its effects on actors of the informal sector, whose transactions are largely held in cash. To do so we conduct a case study of street markets in Bangalore, characterised by an extant dichotomy between sellers owning digital means of transaction (mainly digital wallets running on smartphones) and sellers not owning them. Our guiding research question is therefore, 'how has cashlessness affected street sellers in Bangalore?' Combining theories of information poverty with emerging theorisations of data justice, we find three forms of injustice experienced by street sellers in the observed context. First, digital wallets are mostly not designed for the basic needs of street sellers, who need immediate notification of transactions and easy-to-use interfaces. Second, knowledge on usability of digital wallets is discontinuous, with street sellers being exposed to incomplete and conflicting sources of information. Third, costs of exclusion from cashless transactions have increased over the last years, with competition from e-marketplaces generating a new important source of economic distress. Based on the empirical account provided, we draw implications for countries with large informal sectors transitioning to cashless economies.
*Bio:* Silvia Masiero is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in International Development at the School of Business and Economics, Loughborough University. Her research concerns the role of ICTs in socio‐economic development, with a focus on the participation of ICT artefacts in the politics of anti‐poverty programmes and emergency management. Silvia has conducted extensive work on the computerisation of India's main food security programme, the Public Distribution System (PDS), and on the adoption of ICTs in core aspects of the Indian public sphere including elections, rural employment guarantees, and programmes of social protection. She is a fellow of the Higher Education Academy (HEA), a member of the Association for Information Systems (AIS), and a member of the UNESCO Chair in ICT4D.
Thank you