‘NO! We don’t have a joint account’: mobile telephony, mBanking, and gender inequality in the lives of married women in western rural Kenya

ABSTRACT

This paper examines how mobile communication and mobile banking is used by women in rural western Kenya (Elgeyo Marakwet), a resource-constrained area where women must carefully monitor the flow of money through their households. Also, women face structural inequality. Among other things, polygyny (one husband and several wives) is legal. Based on the inductive analysis of 25 interviews with women, and using the lens of intersectionality, we examine their use of mobile banking. We examine how mobile technology plays into the management of the household economy, and how it is used in extramarital relationships. We discuss how women use mobile communication in their collective savings groups (chama). We see how the mobile phone can be the locus of tensions within the household and how mBanking both supports the lives of the women but also how this can eventually undercut social support.

KEYWORDS:

• Kenya
• Chama
• Women
• Polygyny
• mobile communication
• mPesa

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/211rank.html#KE.

2 This is defined at less than $1.90 per day. https://www.gapminder.org.

3 mShwari is a paperless mobile phone-based savings account offered through the mPesa system. Money in an mShwari account accrues interest as with a traditional savings account. (https://www.safaricom.co.ke/personal/m-pesa/do-more-with-m-pesa/loans-and-savings). There is also a microcredit service.

4 The law refers to polygamy, but it explicitly recognizes the right of the man to have several wives but not the opposite. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/21/kenya-parliament-passes-bill-allowing-polygamy.

5 International Telecommunication Union https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Statistics/Pages/stat/default.aspx.

6 https://www.mangotree.org/Technology-Post/M-Chama.

7 See: https://techguy.co.ke/m-pesa-chama-account/ or https://www.dhahabu.co.ke/2017/03/26/m-pesa-chama-account-works/.

8 https://chamapesa.com/hasgtagfecosystemone. Accessed 17/1/2019.

9 The study received ethical clearance from ___ (removed to ensure anonymity) University in Kenya.

10 A couple can have a shared account if they share the PIN-code on a common phone.

11 Early Childhood Development.

12 https://www.safaricom.co.ke/personal/m-pesa/do-more-with-m-pesa/m-pesa-chama-account.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Nanyang Technological University: [grant number 001].

Notes on contributors

Leah Jerop Komen

Leah Jerop Komen, is a senior Lecturer at Daystar University’s School of Communication in Kenya. She holds a doctorate in New Media and Development from University of East London, UK and is currently the Deputy Director, Resource Mobilization and Partnerships at Daystar University. Her research focus include Mobile communication and domestication of ICTs for development communication.

Richard Ling

Prof. Richard Ling, (PhD, University of Colorado, 1984) is a Shaw Foundation Professor of Media Technology at Wee Kim, School of Communication and Information, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He has focused his work in the Social consequence of mobile communication, In mobile communication circles, he has been termed as the Father of mobile communication.