Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Data Economy and the Practice of Everyday Life

Princeton University, Princeton NJ

Investigators

Abstract

Mobile money is a fast growing global phenomenon with $1.3 billion processed daily, nearly 1 billion registered users, and explosive 20% year-on-year global growth. In this system, credit is offered through online platforms—often unregulated— and distributed via mobile money. In economies where exchange leans heavily on close social ties, such impersonal and socially invisible sources of digital credit represent a radical break with the bases of social order. How should we understand this juncture of digital financial circuits with household economies? How do individuals come to adopt, avoid, or use digital credit amidst a dense network of socially negotiated economic relations? And, in turn, how does the introduction of technocratic relations of debt and credit reshape existing social and economic relations? This technological expansion is often framed in terms of democratized access to the global economy, and is supported by research that examines the effect of financial-technology interventions on standard economic measures such as income. While empirically valuable, such research neglects questions of how mundane technological interventions may have broader social and political consequences. This project examines how new digital infrastructures: 1) present occasions to re-arrange existing relations of exchange and negotiation in the market; and 2) enable or constrain processes of valuation, and therefore value creation, in the market. This process-oriented approach sheds light not only on current developments but also on what a technologically-mediated economic future may look like. In the way that 20th century road infrastructure still shapes collective life, how digital financial infrastructures are laid down today is likely to have far-reaching consequences. This project presents an early opportunity to examine such futures, thus providing guidance for policy-makers looking to help societies adapt to this important technological change. This project studies the case of changing relations of personal credit and debt amidst a booming digital market for household and personal finance. The project adopts a mixed methods approach using nationally representative survey data, qualitative interviews, and ethnographic observation in sequence to: 1) establish statistical findings about the current state of the digital economy, 2) examine how cultural narratives frame the deployment and adoption of digital finance, and 3) offer a processual account of how digital finance infrastructure re-orders exchange in everyday life. In partnership with local research organizations, the project first collects both self-reported data on social and economic behavior as well as digital trace data such as mobile money transaction logs from a nationally representative sample of 1,800 smartphone users. The project uses regression analysis and computational cluster analysis to identify key axes of variation along which the use of digital finance is patterned. The project then conducts up to 100 semi-structured interviews with developers and users of the new economy to examine how different cultural narratives and practices shape how digital finance is both designed and integrated into everyday life. Finally, the project conducts ethnographic observations in key urban and peri-urban sites to gather the evidence of people’s lives. Findings from the project will contribute to sociological theories regarding the operation of financial markets and the effects of technological change on exchange relationships within the context of a changing global economy. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.