A Capabilitarian Account of the Potential of Mobile Money for Rural Poverty Reduction in Bauchi, Northern Nigeria

The concept of financial inclusion is partly about empowering underserved or unserved individuals with options to engage within a financial system. With the advent of mobile-money, many people living in rural and cash economies can use their mobile phones to access nontraditional means of banking. The ability to use mobile phones for payment and remittance purposes has changed the ways mobile phones and banking are used, because of the opportunity offered to underbanked and unbanked populations in many developing countries. Although there is an increasing amount of research in this area, studies relating mobile money to human development, and more specifically to rural poverty as ‘capability deprivation’ are limited. The capability approach has in recent decades emerged as a theoretical framework for understanding poverty, justice, inequality and human development. Although the approach has been extensively operationalised in varied contexts, there remains scarce overt interaction between the capability approach and the branch of research focused on assessing information and communications technology (ICT) for advancing human development. The capability approach is operationalised here to examine the transformative potential of ICTs in human development. In particular, the study assesses the effect of mobile-money on human capabilities of poor and rural individuals in Bauchi State, Northern Nigeria. Research insights are thus used to produce a capabilitarian account through which mobilemoney is evaluated in terms of its ability to expand or obstruct people’s valued human capabilities to achieve their ideas of ’the good’. Secondary evidence synthesised with empirical discoveries suggest that mobile-money is valuable if the range of financial services allow poor people to pursue their wellbeing goals by serving primarily as a savings platform and a facilitator of quick and dependable payments and transfers. While a proportion of rural populations are included (through capability expansion) in the mobile-money ecosystem, some remain inevitably excluded (through capability obstruction), and therefore still deprived in terms of their capabilities as a result of mobile-money. In conclusion, challenges relating to accessibility, affordability and awareness need to be adequately addressed in order for mobile-money to attain its transformative potential of reducing rural poverty. By exploring how mobile-money plays a role in enhancing or obstructing human capabilities, this study demonstrates that the capability approach lends itself to making a more robust analysis that allows a theorisation of the link between ICTs and human development

How does the use of mobile phones by 16-24 year old socially excluded women affect their capabilities?

This research looks at the impact of mobile phone use on the lives and opportunities of 16-24 year-old socially excluded women, using a novel, cross-disciplinary framework of the capability approach and affordances. Fieldwork took the form of semi-structured interviews in 2013-14 with 30 women between the ages of 16-24, and four youth workers. The instrumental affordances of mobile phones are examined to understand whether they provide a means to address issues relating to work, health, education and housing. The impact of the maintenance and communicative affordances of mobile phones on women’s lives and relationships is also critically examined. The fieldwork showed that respondents were making limited use of instrumental affordances to address issues of social exclusion. Poverty impacted on women’s mobile phone use: they lacked funds to repair their phones and experienced intermittent connectivity. Respondents were often paying a high proportion of their income for their mobile phones, going over call limits and breaking contracts. Mobile phones were contributing to a ‘digitally gendered’ identity, including technology-facilitated sexual harassment and gendered communicative practices. Economic and social circumstances meant that half of respondents were reliant on these devices for their Internet connection, and thus for a wide range of instrumental purposes. This demonstrates the value of research on women’s use of mobile phones that is alive not just to gendered technology use, but also to structural issues of class and poverty. This study shows the strength of cross-disciplinary approaches to studies on the social effects of inequalities of access to digital tools, particularly in the use of theories from the field of human computer interaction to ‘materialise’ understanding of the relationship between social and digital exclusion. It also makes a significant contribution to knowledge on the use of mobile phones by socially excluded young women in the UK

A global measurement approach versus a country-specific measurement approach – Do they draw the same picture of child poverty? The case of Vietnam

Child poverty can be measured using approaches that aim to make cross-country comparisons on a regional or global scale or to capture a country’s specific poverty context. The first can be referred to as a global approach and the second as a country-specific approach. These underlying rationales for the design and use of a child poverty approach have great implications for their theoretical and conceptual frameworks. This paper investigates whether the conceptual differences between the global and country-specific approaches also draw a different empirical picture of child poverty when applied to a specific country. Vietnam is used as a case study for the application of both approaches and analysis of results. The methodology used identifies children at two different levels of poverty, namely severe deprivation and absolute poverty. Findings suggest that the country-specific approach is more inclusive than the global approach, identifying a larger percentage of children as poor and capturing the large majority of those children identified under the global approach. Poverty figures of both approaches further convey a varying picture of child poverty when considering the different dimensions of vulnerability. The demographic composition of the poverty groups by either one or both of the approaches does not display significant differences.child poverty, multidimensional poverty, Vietnam

Unmet goals of tracking: within-track heterogeneity of students' expectations for

Educational systems are often characterized by some form(s) of ability grouping, like tracking. Although substantial variation in the implementation of these practices exists, it is always the aim to improve teaching efficiency by creating homogeneous groups of students in terms of capabilities and performances as well as expected pathways. If students’ expected pathways (university, graduate school, or working) are in line with the goals of tracking, one might presume that these expectations are rather homogeneous within tracks and heterogeneous between tracks. In Flanders (the northern region of Belgium), the educational system consists of four tracks. Many students start out in the most prestigious, academic track. If they fail to gain the necessary credentials, they move to the less esteemed technical and vocational tracks. Therefore, the educational system has been called a 'cascade system'. We presume that this cascade system creates homogeneous expectations in the academic track, though heterogeneous expectations in the technical and vocational tracks. We use data from the International Study of City Youth (ISCY), gathered during the 2013-2014 school year from 2354 pupils of the tenth grade across 30 secondary schools in the city of Ghent, Flanders. Preliminary results suggest that the technical and vocational tracks show more heterogeneity in student’s expectations than the academic track. If tracking does not fulfill the desired goals in some tracks, tracking practices should be questioned as tracking occurs along social and ethnic lines, causing social inequality

The Relationship between quality of life, education, and poverty & inequality in South Africa: the capability approach as an alternative analytical framework

Magister Artium - MAIn this thesis I present – from the perspective of the capability approach and within the context of South Africa – a conceptual analysis of the relationship between quality of life, education, poverty and inequality. The role of education within the South African context is of particular importance. The capability approach, which was pioneered by economist-philosopher Amartya Sen and significantly further developed by philosopher Martha Nussbaum and a growing number of other scholars across the humanities and social sciences, is a theoretical framework for the assessment and comparison of quality of life and social justice. The argument is made that when inquiring about the prosperity of a nation or region in the world, traditional economic approaches – such as gross domestic product (GDP), which is the most commonly used indicator of economic activity – are not, by themselves, accurate or adequate. When assessing individuals and societies‟ quality of life and sense of well-being, we need to know not only about their levels of income, wealth, or consumption; but also about the opportunities they have, or do not have, to choose and to act. The capability approach provides a more comprehensive conceptualisation of quality of life, because it takes into account broader and more encompassing measures of well-being. Conceptualising quality of life from the perspective of the capability approach, makes it clear that large numbers, if not the vast majority, of people experience many forms of unfreedom that impedes their development (i.e. their freedom to choose), and prevents them from leading lives they consider valuable and worthwhile. Many people lack capabilities. The capability approach asserts that the expansion of the real freedoms that people enjoy (i.e. what people are effectively able to be and to do) is both the primary end and the principle means of development. Expansion of freedom equates to enhanced individual agency as a result of an increase in capabilities. Furthermore, individual agency is central to addressing various deprivations (both individual and societal)

Re-thinking Mobility Poverty

"This book seeks to better conceptualise and define mobility poverty, addressing both its geographies and socio-economic landscapes. It moves beyond the analysis of ‘transport poverty’ and innovatively explores mobility inequalities and social construction of mobility disadvantages. The debate on mobility poverty is gaining momentum due to its role in triggering social exclusion and economic deprivation. In this light, this book examines the social construction of mobility poverty by delving into mobility patterns and needs as they are differently experienced by social groups in different geographical situations. It considers factors such as the role of transport regimes and their social value when analysing the social construction of individual´s mobility needs. Furthermore, the gaps between articulated and unarticulated needs are identified by observing actual travel patterns of individuals. The book offers a comparison of the global phenomenon through fieldwork conducted in six different European countries – Greece, Portugal, Italy, Luxembourg, Romania and Germany. This book will be useful reading for planners, sociologists, geographers, mobility/transport researchers, mobility advocates, policy-makers and transport practitioners. The Open Access version of this book, available at https://doi.org/10.4324/9780367333317, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license.

The meaning of poverty: perspectives from a Scottish housing estate

While much poverty research has concentrated on the definition and measurement of poverty, the primary concern of this thesis is the meaning of poverty in contemporary society. It is suggested that, while existing research describes the conditions and hardships that people experience in poverty, much less attention is given to how they make sense of and respond to these conditions. This thesis attempts to address this issue by exploring the narratives of people living on an urban council housing scheme, a group who tend to be regarded by the rest of society as poor and socially excluded.The first part of the thesis examines the subjective definitions and conceptions of poverty held by local residents. It finds that local residents generally resist the idea that they are poor. In their own accounts, they emphasise their personal capacity and scope for control, rather than the constraints that they face. The research goes on to ask: what is it about the experience of people in these areas and their understanding of the meaning of poverty which makes them deny that they are poor? For those interviewed, poverty is interpreted at a personal level as a form of identity associated with a lack of agency. People are identified as poor not by their material circumstances alone, but by their inability to cope with and remain on top of conditions of material hardship. It is in this context that respondents stress their ability to manage and overcome the difficulties they face and by this means seek to demonstrate their personal competence and moral adequacy.In the second part of the thesis, the relationship between poverty, agency and identity is explored with respect to the community and local people's involvement in community action. Two distinct discourses on poverty are identified in the accounts of local residents active in local groups and organisations. An exclusive discourse of poverty identifies poor people as a distinct social group by reference to their weakness, demoralisation and dependent status. Local activists experience this discourse as exclusionary and disempowering. However, a more inclusive discourse on poverty is apparent in the accounts of some activists which links the experience of poverty to more positive forms of collective action and mutual support developed in the community. This discourse is compatible with a conception of people as social agents, actively involved in maintaining their welfare in conditions of relative material deprivation.The thesis raises questions about the ways in which poverty is understood in different contexts and by different groups. It also reveals the problematic nature of poverty discourse for individuals who experience material hardship or belong to groups identified as poor. It is the struggle to maintain a positive self-conception in the light of negative meanings conveyed through poverty discourse that emerges from this study. An important aspect of community-based activity is the rejection of a stigmatised identity as poor people which reduces people to the status of social objects. By contrast, the construction of a more positive social identity emphasises their actions as subjects. The thesis concludes by suggesting that greater attention needs to be given to the social meanings and forms of categorisation involved in defining people as poor. It is proposed that future research should attempt to identify different kinds of poverty discourse and how these relate to particular conceptions of poverty and social perceptions of poor people