Contextualizing Intermediated Use in the Developing World: Findings from India & Ghana
summary
Ethnographic work in India and Ghana shows intermediaries doing concrete, repeated practices outside the interface: mobile agents run to banks to copy deposit slips and stamp customer forms to give simulated bank paperwork that reassures users who cannot parse SMS receipts, and microfinance clients routinely hand over paper passbooks, creating custody-of-passbooks workflows where agents make calls, report balances, and sometimes make financial decisions for clients. These practices enable access but create latent vulnerabilities and opportunism; fraud is reported anecdotally though not observed.
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chapters (8)
- 0:00Introduction
- 1:34What is intermediated use
- 3:22Fieldwork cases overview
- 3:44Mobile banking in India
- 5:14Microfinance in Ghana
- 7:43Conclusion and implications
- 8:46Q&A begins
- 12:15Q&A ends
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