Surveillance of the poor in a socio-financial enclosure: a critical analysis of Zidisha.org

Abstract

This article provides a critical analysis in examining narratives on Zidisha.org, a microlending site that facilitates loans to the poor, building on media scholar Mark Andrejevic's conception of the digital enclosure and the critical anthropology of development scholar Anke Schwittay's theorisation of financial inclusion. Online microlending sites like Zidisha have wide-reaching implications for policy and development initiatives. The study's findings suggest that perceptible signs of the contemporary neo-liberal effort to assemble ordinary people through Web 2.0 communication technologies to participate in the socio-financial enclosure are riddled with issues of control and surveillance, coupled with a paradoxical meaning of the financial inclusion concept.