Reimagining Money by Sibel Kusimba;

Author:Sibel Kusimba;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Published: 2020-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

8

Strategic Ignorance

“My last-born brother came to me for money for dowry.” Fred is a Nairobi teacher whose family contributed via digital money to help his younger brother raise bridewealth. “It was hard for me because we had set a limit as family members, and I made sure to contribute that stipulated amount.” Fred explained that life was getting too expensive. In maturity he found himself “caught in the middle,” taking care of family members both younger and older than himself. Setting targets for contributions was a way to ensure fairness. “But even after paying the dowry, he still called telling us that we had to chip in a second time. This second time I was unwilling!”

The siblings then turned to friends and other relatives. “Other people also contributed, but he kept disturbing me, and I was able to help him even though it took some time.” In the end Fred had to find a way: “Since he is my brother and whenever I have a problem, I share with him, I decided to help but it took time.”

As Fred explained, the wealth-in-people of digital money takes time to create and to sustain. People create a powerful moral economy when they speak of money as caring for others and being present for others. But because resources are limited, people are also wary of burdening others and of becoming a burden themselves. They must find acceptable ways to break these norms of generosity—ways to not give. They choose presence or absence—to take a call or to turn off the phone. Strategic ignorance describes a way to retreat from the information, resources, and relationships of one’s social ties in order to lessen the obligation to give.1 In retreating, people blame technology—the unreliability of networks and the distortion and deception wrought by mobile communication. By delegating responsibility and agency to their devices, people negotiate strategies of non-use.2 In this chapter I will describe how changeable strategies with mothers, fathers, friends, and co-members reveal the moral weight and social dilemmas of these negotiations, and ultimately, the fragility of wealth-in-people.

A Moral Economy

“Yesterday . . . I ran into someone in town, and he told me, oh today is your day, I’ll buy you lunch. He asked me, should I send you by M-Pesa? I told him my phone is dead. And he said, I will send it anyway so that when you charge it, your lunch will be there. So I praised the Lord because he has given me this gifted life.” Emmanuel, a firstborn son whose struggle for belonging in his stepfather’s lineage was described in Chapter 7, explained that his reputation for generosity and kindness brought him many money transfers from friends: “If I was a bad person—if I was mean to my brothers—I’m pretty sure that blessings such as this would not occur.”

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