A living fence : financial inclusion and exclusion on the Haiti–Dominican Republic border

Erin B. Taylor, Heather A. Horst

Research output: Chapter in Book / Conference PaperChapter

7 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Financial inclusion is often understood to be about choice. The logic of “banking the unbanked” and providing access to services such as mobile money and microfinance is that access to a greater range of products allows poor but rational consumers to choose products that best fit their needs, lowering monetary and transaction costs and relieving the stress of meeting everyday needs. A design or cultural logic might also suggest that when products—even financial ones—are put in the hands of human beings, they take on heightened symbolic meanings. Yet, studies by social scientists have demonstrated that most people already have a significant degree of financial choice, even when formal financial products are not available (James 2014; Stoll 2012). As the financial diary studies in India and South Africa demonstrated conclusively, poor people have access to a broad range of financial tools for saving, borrowing, lending, investing, and insuring (Collins et al. 2009). Moreover, these are often socially embedded in local communities and family networks. What, then, does formalization of financial services off er to those who have already been navigating a diverse (if unbanked) financial landscape? The introduction to this book suggests a way to address these kinds of very real questions from the perspective of the poor. It is not formalization per se that provides greater choice, but rather, as Musaraj and Small suggest, that the technologies and infrastructures upon which formal financial products operate provide possibilities that informal products generally do not. Telecommunications infrastructure permits transactions to take place at a vastly greater speed over large geographic distances than do informal products. Transaction data is disembedded from its local context, “remembered” by computers rather than being kept in the ledgers or memories of transacting parties. Consumers are theoretically freed from the material constraints entailed in cash and paper records. And yet, the newly “banked” (or mobile moneyed, etc.) tend to continue to use informal products. As Musaraj and Small note, the division between formal and informal financial tools is a false one when viewed from the perspective of consumers. Rather than switch completely from old to new when they gain access to formal services, people often choose from among the entire array at their disposal. Formal financial services offer some superior features, but they do not replace informal services completely. In some cases, this is due to the fact that other aspects of people’s lives transgress the formal/informal divide: people may, for example, be unevenly incorporated into state apparatuses, lacking identity documents for instance, or they may operate primarily in a localized informal economy and have little need for long-distance transactions. Straddling a formal/informal divide becomes all the more complex when consumers live and work across a national border. In this chapter we present a case study of two towns on the border of Haiti and the Dominican Republic to illustrate how Haitians negotiate the restrictions and advantages of border crossing for financial inclusion. We use the term “living fence” to describe how the border simultaneously generates sources of insecurity (through state control and economic exclusions) and possibility (through its permeability and differential economies). This chapter includes the perspectives of consumers, employees, and entrepreneurs in order to demonstrate how relationships and technologies mutually shape the economic and social lives of Haitians living on both sides of the border region. The border of Haiti and the Dominican Republic is an example of what Sidney Mintz (1962) called the “living fence.” Through this analysis, we problematize notions of inclusion and exclusion through demonstrating the contingent nature of the power relations embedded within the economic and social relations formed across the living fence.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationMoney at the Margins: Global Perspectives on Technology, Financial Inclusion and Design
EditorsBill Maurer, Smoki Musaraj, Ivan Small
Place of PublicationU.S.
PublisherBerghahn Books
Pages23-43
Number of pages21
ISBN (Electronic)9781785336546
ISBN (Print)9781785336539
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2018

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