Digital Economies at Global Margins Digital Economies at Global Margins edited by Mark Graham The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England International Development Research Centre Ottawa • Amman • Montevideo • Nairobi • New Delhi © 2019 Contributors This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC-BY 4.0) Inter- national License. Published by the MIT Press. MIT Press books may be purchased at special quan- tity discounts for business or sales promotional use. For information, please email [email protected] . A copublication with International Development Research Centre PO Box 8500 Ottawa, ON K1G 3H9 Canada www.idrc.ca/ [email protected] The research presented in this publication was carried out with the financial assis- tance of Canada’s International Development Research Centre. The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent those of IDRC or its Board of Governors. ISBN 978-1-55250-600-4 (IDRC e-book) This book was set in ITC Stone Sans Std and ITC Stone Serif Std by Toppan Best-set Premedia Limited. Printed and bound in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Graham, Mark, 1980- editor. Title: Digital economies at global margins / edited by Mark Graham. Description: Cambridge, MA : MIT Press, [2018] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2018010198 | ISBN 9780262535892 (pbk. : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Small business--Technological innovations. | Electronic commerce. | Marginality, Social. | Social marketing. Classification: LCC HD2341 .D54 2018 | DDC 384.309172/4--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018010198 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Contents Acknowledgments ix 1 Changing Connectivity and Digital Economies at Global Margins 1 Mark Graham Opening Essays 19 Marginal Benefits at the Global Margins: The Unfulfilled Potential of Digital Technologies 21 Uwe Deichmann and Deepak Mishra Toward the Transformative Power of Universal Connectivity 25 Bitange Ndemo A Data-Driven Approach to Closing the Internet Inclusion Gap 29 Robert Pepper and Molly Jackman Digital Services and Industrial Inclusion: Growing Africa’s Technological Complexity 33 Calestous Juma Platforms at the Margins 39 Jonathan Donner and Chris Locke Digital Economies at Global Margins: A Warning from the Dark Side 43 Tim Unwin Digital Globality and Economic Margins—Unpacking Myths, Recovering Materialities 47 Anita Gurumurthy vi Contents I Digitalization at Global Margins 53 2 Making Sense of Digital Disintermediation and Development: The Case of the Mombasa Tea Auction 55 Christopher Foster, Mark Graham, and Timothy Mwolo Waema 3 Development or Divide? Information and Communication Technologies in Commercial Small-Scale Farming in East Africa 79 Madlen Krone and Peter Dannenberg 4 Digital Inclusion, Female Entrepreneurship, and the Production of Neoliberal Subjects—Views from Chile and Tanzania 103 Hannah McCarrick and Dorothea Kleine 5 “Let the Private Sector Take Care of This”: The Philanthro- Capitalism of Digital Humanitarianism 129 Ryan Burns 6 The Digitalization of Anti-poverty Programs: Aadhaar and the Reform of Social Protection in India 153 Silvia Masiero 7 The Myth of Market Price Information: Mobile Phones and the Application of Economic Knowledge in ICTD 173 Jenna Burrell and Elisa Oreglia II Digital Production at Global Margins 191 8 Hope and Hype in Africa’s Digital Economy: The Rise of Innovation Hubs 193 Nicolas Friederici 9 Hackathons and the Cultivation of Platform Dependence 223 Lilly Irani 10 Meeting Social Objectives with Offshore Service Work: Evaluating Impact Sourcing in the Philippines 249 Jorien Oprins and Niels Beerepoot 11 Digital Labor and Development: Impacts of Global Digital Labor Platforms and the Gig Economy on Worker Livelihoods 269 Mark Graham, Isis Hjorth, and Vili Lehdonvirta Contents vii 12 Geographic Discrimination in the Gig Economy 295 Hernan Galperin and Catrihel Greppi 13 Margins at the Center: Alternative Digital Economies in Shenzhen, China 319 Jack Linchuan Qiu and Julie Yujie Chen 14 African Economies: Simply Connect? Problematizing the Discourse on Connectivity in Logistics and Communication 341 Stefan Ouma, Julian Stenmanns, and Julia Verne Author Affiliations 365 Index 367 Acknowledgments A c k n o w l e d g m e n t s A c k n o w l e d g m e n t s © Massachusetts Institute of Technology All Rights Reserved This book was only brought into being with the support, guidance, and contributions of many friends and colleagues. I wish to thank, first of all, the book’s authors, all of whom put together their contributions with great effort, care, and thoughtfulness, cooperatively and patiently revising their chapters. This volume was born of conference sessions at the 2015 meeting of the American Association of Geographers and the 2015 Global Conference on Economic Geography. These sessions, and the initial ideas for this book, were put together in collaboration with my colleagues Nicolas Friederici, Heather Ford, Chris Foster, and Isis Hjorth. I am very grateful for the energy and creative guidance they each provided. The set of concerns that guide this book also find a supportive home among two overlapping groups of scholars at the Oxford Internet Insti- tute: the “Geonet” and “Digital Inequality” research clusters. I wish to thank Mohammed Amir Anwar, Grant Blank, Margie Cheesman, Stefano De Sabbata, Martin Dittus, Nicolas Friederici, Fabian Braesemann, Iginio Gagliardone, Khairunnisa Haji Ibrahim, Sanna Ojanperä, Joe Shaw, David Souter, Ralph Straumann, Michel Wahome, Jamie Woodcock, and Alex Wood for helping to build such an inspiring community focused on digital inequalities. I also wish to thank David Sutcliffe for his ever-attentive role as an editor. Sanna Ojanperä and Mohammed Amir Anwar also provided critical reviews on individual chapters. The book is much improved as a result of their help. At all stages of putting the book together, I also relied heavily on the constant encouragement, support, and guidance offered by Kat Braybrooke. Her ability to act as a sounding board, creatively think through ideas, and offer constructive guidance has been invaluable. Thank you Kat.