Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-vdxz6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T08:14:22.575Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Platform economies: Beyond the North-South divide

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2023

Janet Roitman
Janet Roitman*
Affiliation:
RMIT University, Australia
*
Corresponding author: Janet Roitman, RMIT University, Centre for Automated Decision-Making and Society, 106-108 Victoria Street, Carlton VIC, 3053 Australia. Email: [email protected].
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Platform economies are depicted as the foundation for a new era of economic production. This transpires through the incorporation of digital technologies and algorithmic operations into the heart of economic and financial practices. However, different assumptions are made about the effects of digital platforms depending on geographical location. While digital platforms are approached as inherent to processes of financialization globally, they are reduced to processes of financial inclusion when referencing the ‘Global South’. Analyses of financialization as a one-way-vector - Global North to Global South - overlook the variability, the limits, and responses to financialization. In contrast, a focus on market devices illustrates the specificities of value creation. An example of this is ‘the float’, a form of financial value generated by mobile telecommunication operators, mobile money issuers, and commercial banks in Africa. Through this lens, we see instances of both value subjugation and autonomization, evidence that the fault lines of value production generated by ambiguous market devices are obscured by the Global North/Global South frame.

Keywords

Platform economiesfinancializationGlobal Southmobile moneyremittancesvalue creation
Type
Keynote essay
Information
Finance and Society , Volume 9 , Issue 1 , 2023 , pp. 1 - 13
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits noncommercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
© 2023 The Author(s)

References

Birch, K. and Muniesa, F. (eds.) (2020) Assetization: Turning Things into Assets in Technoscientific Capitalism. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.10.7551/mitpress/12075.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bouwman, H. et al. (eds.) (2008) Mobile Service Innovation and Business Models. Berlin: Springer.10.1007/978-3-540-79238-3CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Breckenridge, K. (2019) The failure of the ‘Single Source of Truth about Kenyans’: The NDRS, collateral mysteries and the Safaricom monopoly. African Studies, 78(1): 91–111.10.1080/00020184.2018.1540515CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Callon, M., Millo, Y. and Muniesa, F. (2007) Market Devices. London: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Donovan, K. and Park, E. (2022) Knowledge/seizure: Debt and data in Kenya's zero balance economy. Antipode, 54(4): 1063–85.10.1111/anti.12815CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dourish, P. (2017) The Stuff of Bits: An Essay on the Materialities of Information. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.10.7551/mitpress/10999.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elyachar, J. (2006) Markets of Dispossession: NGOs, Economic Development, and the State in Cairo. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Frost, J. (2020) The economic forces driving fintech adoption across countries. BIS Working Papers, No. 838.10.2139/ssrn.3515326CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gabor, D. (2021) The liquidity and sustainability facility for African sovereign bonds: Who benefits? Eurodad Report, March 21. https://www.eurodad.org/the_liquidity_and_sustainability_facility_for_african_sovereign_bonds_who_benefits.10.31235/osf.io/erku6CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gabor, D., and Brooks, S. (2017) The digital revolution in financial inclusion: International development in the fintech era. New Political Economy, 22(4): 423–36.10.1080/13563467.2017.1259298CrossRefGoogle Scholar
GSMA (2021) State of the Industry Report on Mobile Money. London: GSMA.Google Scholar
Guermond, V. (2020) Marketisation as financialisation in the making? The construction of remittance markets in Senegal. Geoforum, 117: 234–45.10.1016/j.geoforum.2020.10.009CrossRefGoogle Scholar
IMF (2022) Freeing Foreign Exchange in Africa. Washington, D.C.: IMF.Google Scholar
Jaton, F. (2021) The Constitution of Algorithms: Ground-truthing, Programming, Formulating. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.10.7551/mitpress/12517.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Langevin, M. (2019) Big data for (not so) small loans: Technological infrastructures and the massification of fringe finance. Review of International Political Economy, 26(5): 790–814.10.1080/09692290.2019.1616597CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Langley, P. and Rodima-Taylor, D. (2022) FinTech in Africa: An editorial introduction. Journal of Cultural Economy, 15(4): 387–400.10.1080/17530350.2022.2092193CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mehrling, P. (2022) Money and Empire: Charles P. Kindleberger and the Dollar System. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/9781009158589CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pouemi, J.T. (1980) Monnaie, servitude et liberté: La répression monétaire de l'Afrique. Paris: Editions Jeune Afrique.Google Scholar
Sylla, N.S. and Pigeaud, F. (2021) Africa's Last Colonial Currency: The CFA Franc Story. London: Pluto.Google Scholar
Weisenthal, J. and Alloway, T. (2022) Zoltan Pozar and Perry Mehrling debate the dollar. Bloomberg News, 13 September. Available at: <https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-13/transcript-zoltan-pozsar-and-perry-mehrling-debate-the-dollar/>. Accessed 27 October 2022..+Accessed+27+October+2022.>Google Scholar