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

Renee Kuriyan and Dawn NafusPeople and Practices ResearchIntel Corporation

Roadmap

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

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

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.

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 people’s agency and at the same time expands the agency of the institutions serving them to make claims about progress, markets and nationhood.

Literature

• Ferguson’s 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.

• Mazzarella’s “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.

Methods

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

• Participant observation and semi structured interviews

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

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

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

The BoP as the consumer: The Meta View of Depoliticization

Implemented in the “name of the unbanked” or the Bottom of the Pyramid consumer

Case of M-Pesa:

Case of M-Pesa

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.

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

M-Pesa for Everyone

Nairobi Elite

Rural poor

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.

The Kenyan Consumer:Look 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:PriceStrong BrandConvenienceThink about TodaySmall pieces

Different consumer populations blended into one that is Kenyan

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 didn’t say anything to stop the violence. That’s when they lost it- so no one cares anymore. Because we won’t see changes as a population.”

Njoki, middle class woman

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 can’t 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 village’s project in all 50 areas at the same time.”

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 idea—but 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

Nationhood and the Politics of Being Kenyan

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.

Conclusion

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 forms—enabling particular agendas and political positionings on an international, national and local stage.