A New Market or Development for the Poor: Depoliticizing the Consumer

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A New Market or Development for the Poor
Depoliticizing the Consumer
Renee Kuriyan and Dawn Nafus People and
Practices Research Intel Corporation
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Roadmap

• Argument- Depoliticization of the Consumer
• The Literature
• Meta View of depoliticization
• The Case of M-Pesa in Kenya

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With the BoP discourse of poor as consumers,
there was a conflation of consumer agendas with
national development goals
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Argument Depoliticization of the consumer

• Notions of the consumer are rendered technical
  and used as instruments of the state, businesses
  and individuals, particularly in relation to
  development.
• Process of depoliticization associated with the
  consumer
• Abstracts individuals from the cultural
  frameworks within which they operate.
• Becomes tools to construct identities, develop
  aspirations, and delineate boundaries between the
  public and private spheres.

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Significance

• Creates opportunities
• IT corporations with governments around nation
  building agendas
• Low income populations identity construction
• New interactions between states and civil society

The figure of the consumer raises the issue of
poor peoples agency and at the same time expands
the agency of the institutions serving them to
make claims about progress, markets and
nationhood.
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Literature

• Fergusons anti-politics machine an apolitical
  and technical understanding of development
  enables practitioners to define development in
  technically solvable ways, and abstracted from
  the politics not so much of the receiving country
  but of the donor countries and organizations.
• Mazzarellas consumer as invented there is no
  pre-given consumer who lives out there. The
  consumer is a construct that is invented and
  re-invented by advertisers, marketers, and
  private entities that create a portrait of
  specific aspects of culture that can be leveraged
  to encourage individuals to buy.

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Methods

• 41 interviews were conducted in Kenya with
  government, telcos, private sector, development
  organizations and consumers themselves
• Participant observation and semi structured
  interviews

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The BoP as the consumer The Meta View of
Depoliticization

• Private sector
• Enabled corporations to engage with an entire
  segment of people who were previously morally and
  financially out of bounds.
• Re-think the view of developing countries as the
  sole realm of development institutions and aid
  organizations

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The BoP as the consumer The Meta View of
Depoliticization

• Governments
• Going beyond regulatory roles
• Actively subsidizing individual purchase of ICTs
  to make use of broadband infrastructure
• Creating opportunities for the emergence of
  technology consumers (perceived to be
  contributing to national development strategies)
• Nation states can take advantage of private
  actors operating in traditionally state-run
  spaces and in effect outsource traditional
  public services

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The BoP as the consumer The Meta View of
Depoliticization

• Citizens
• Depoliticized figure of the consumer enables the
  poor to aspire to new identities often associated
  with the middle class

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Case of M-Pesa
Implemented in the name of the unbanked or the
Bottom of the Pyramid consumer
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Case of M-Pesa
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Case of M-Pesa The Consumer as Everyone
Our view of the ideal (M-Pesa) consumer is one
that is pervasive throughout the population. Our
volumes of customers tend to be more low value
customers- and definitely the concentration is to
talk to masses, because the product is for
masses. But with our marketing we go pervasive-
we think that the service is for everyone.
Safaricom official, 2009.

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• Consumer as Everyone positioned by
• The Kenyan government as contributing to
  economic development for the country
• The private sector as brilliant marketing and
  penetration strategies for the mass market
• The Kenyan consumer as a service that truly
  understands the Kenyan psyche, needs
• and constraints.
• The BoP to feel part of the larger market or
  population

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M-Pesa for Everyone

M-Pesa shifted a conversation about who consumers
could be to one less defined through social
divides. The consumer is simultaneously seen
as a citizen, market segment, and a nationalist
figure of what it means to be Kenyan.
Nairobi Elite
Rural poor
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The Kenyan ConsumerLook to the Kiosk
If you want to understand the Kenyan consumer,
just look at one of the small kiosks or shops
that sell items on the side of the road. The
kiosk represents what it means to be a Kenyan
mass market consumer.
The Mass market Price Strong Brand Convenience Th
ink about Today Small pieces
Different consumer populations blended into one
that is Kenyan
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Nationhood and the Politics of Being Kenyan
The role of the president and government used to
be really special. After they allowed all the
violence to occur and different tribes of people
to be killed over politics- they didnt say
anything to stop the violence. Thats when they
lost it- so no one cares anymore. Because we
wont see changes as a population. Njoki,
middle class woman
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Nationhood and the Politics of Being Kenyan

• Unified notion of what it means to be Kenyan and
  associating that with the consumer is appealing
  to the mass market, to the private sector and
  even to bureaucrats working within the government
  

Digital Village We cant afford to appear to be
favoring one area of the country because of what
happened last January with the post election
violence. We have to start the Digital villages
project in all 50 areas at the same time.
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Nationhood and the Politics of Being Kenyan

• In effect by using the The consumer as
  everyone concept, there is an attempt (conscious
  or not) by the government and private sector to
  smooth over the divisions within Kenyan society.
• Implicitly promotes equity between the poor and
  rich as well as tribal divisions by considering
  them equal consumers.
• What defines being Kenyan is a highly contested
  ideabut the depoliticized consumer as everyone
  somehow transcends or appears to transcend those
  politics and serves the function of bringing
  people together.
• By no means does it guarantee equity in terms of
  actually reaching everyone it sets out to

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Conclusion
The figure of the consumer was used to make
claims about progress, markets and nationhood as
well as to engage with markets, create partners
and develop new approaches to development.
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Conclusion

• Depoliticization is evident in these two
  examples
• At a meta-level-- move to depoliticize away the
  moral aspects of poverty, and bring agendas to
  the development arena
• Safaricom through M-Pesa in Kenya, an even
  further depoliticization that does not leave the
  poor as distinct consumers, but blends them into
  larger national consumption and political
  agendas.
• Depoliticization is never stable and
  repoliticizations happen in new and evolving
  formsenabling particular agendas and political
  positionings on an international, national and
  local stage.