TY - JOUR AU - Stark, Laura PY - 2021/06/01 Y2 - 2024/03/29 TI - Mobile money and the impact of mobile phone regulatory enforcement among the urban poor in Tanzania JF - Human Technology JA - HT VL - 17 IS - 1 SE - Articles DO - 10.17011/ht/urn.202106223977 UR - https://ht.csr-pub.eu/index.php/ht/article/view/239 SP - 22–44 AB - <p>Mobile money provides a tool for survival, particularly in urban conditions shaped by city regulations that make microvending difficult for the poor. An analysis of 165 interviews conducted in two low-income neighborhoods in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania over 8 years demonstrates how interlocked layers of technology and interaction make mobile money services semiformal. I introduce two mobile money-enabled survival strategies: intrahousehold transfers for day-to-day survival (transfers within the same city) and resource safeguarding through kin remittances of start-up capital (home-based subsistence business capital stored for kin access in emergencies). The recent tightening of mobile phone regulations in the global South has disrupted users’ multilevel and formal/informal-hybrid infrastructures of money movement in these communities. Such tougher regulations could result in a new digital divide that hinders rather than facilitates the financial inclusion of the poor.</p> ER -