Kevin P Donovan
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 123010 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | Kevin P Donovan |
| NOMBRES | Kevin P |
| APELLIDO | Donovan |
| FIRMA | DONOVAN K P |
| AFILIACIONES | University of Edinburgh |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-3922-236X |
| VERIFICADO | Sí |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 17 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 120 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 17 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2014 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 6 |
Withholding-while-Giving
This paper develops an account of parastatal governance, in which putatively distinct organizational forms – private corporation and public state – cohabitate. It does so through Safaricom, Kenya's largest firm. Known for telecommunications and mobile money services, Safaricom does much more than commerce. It is a chief promulgator of patriotism and is expected by Kenyans to provide what elsewhere might be considered ‘public goods’: famine relief…
Money, Value, and the State
Decolonization in East Africa was more than a political event: it was a step towards economic self-determination. In this innovative book, historian and anthropologist Kevin Donovan analyses the contradictions of economic sovereignty and citizenship in Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda, placing money, credit, and smuggling at the center of the region's shifting fortunes. Using detailed archival and ethnographic research undertaken across the region, Don…
Disciplining Citizens and Commodities
In 1975, the Ugandan state established an Economic Crimes Tribunal to investigate and penalize smuggling, hoarding, overcharging, and other commercial malfeasance. In the coming years, innumerable Ugandans were arrested and charged with contravening the state's economic regulations. Prior observers have seen this as another instance of a capricious state, but in this article, I demonstrate the popular investment in economic regulation. Ugandans d…
The role of labor market frictions in structural transformation
Growth is closely related to structural transformation, the reallocation of economic activity among sectors. A well-functioning labor market plays an important role in this process by enabling workers to find employment in the growing, more productive sectors. We review the literature on labor market frictions that limit worker flows, slow structural transformation, and trap workers in poverty. The three main areas of focus are the extent of sect…
Uhuru Sasa! Federal Futures and Liminal Sovereignty in Decolonizing East Africa
Decolonization in East Africa was a regional affair that required the remaking of temporal orders. The staggered independence timelines of Tanganyika, Uganda, and Kenya caused considerable consternation due to transnational solidarities and visions for East African Federation. The interminable delays of Kenyan decolonization also threatened the linked economy of the region and diluted the sovereignty of neighboring states. At issue was 'liminal s…
Knowledge/Seizure
This article examines the growth in mobile phone‐based lending in Kenya, where millions now borrow from services that translate digital data into credit scores. Reeling from ongoing retrenchment and marketisation, many find themselves turning to expensive, short‐term credit to “buy time”. We depart from actuarial approaches to the digital economy that foreground the technical analysis of data in order to emphasise the importance of racialised exp…
Algorithmic Intimacy
English Abstract: Kenya is a frontier market for 'financial technology', or FinTech. This industry - which merges mobile telephony and digital data with commercial lending - has grown spectacularly, with millions of Kenyans borrowing for household, emergency, and commercial expenses. This industry's frenzied growth has been fuelled by not merely the pursuit of profit, but also a decidedly more developmental aspiration, namely 'financial inclusion…
Capitalizing Africa
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Magendo
This article examines the ambiguities of arbitrage, focusing on illegal coffee trade across the Uganda-Kenya border. I show how residents of the borderlands harnessed ordinary tools (gunny sacks, tin cans, and gravity scales) and cultural repertoires (kinship, language, and ritual) to cultivate and capitalize on difference. They reworked territorial jurisdiction, measurement standards, and surface appearances in a form of arbitrage known as magen…
“Financial Inclusion Means Your Money Isn’t with You”
The rise of the randomistas
In recent years, the use of experimental methodologies has emerged as a central means of evaluating international aid interventions. Today, proponents of randomized control trials (so-called randomistas) are among the most influential of development experts. This paper examines the growth of this thought collective, analysing how uncertainty has become a central concern of development institutions. It demonstrates that transformations within the …
How Our Days Became Numbered
New surveillance technologies and their publics
Before a newly-elected government abandoned the project in 2010, for at least eight years the British state actively sought to introduce a mandatory national identification scheme for which the science and technology of biometrics was central. Throughout the effort, government representatives attempted to portray biometrics as a technology that was easily understandable and readily accepted by the public. However, neither task was straightforward…
Infrastructuring aid
In numerous African countries humanitarian and development organizations-as well as governments-are expanding expenditures on social protection schemes as a means of poverty alleviation. These initiatives, which typically provide small cash grants to poor populations, are often considered particularly agreeable for the simplicity of their administration and the feasibility of their implementation. This paper examines the background work required …
The Biometric Imaginary
Starting in March 2012, the South African government engaged in a massive effort of citizen registration that continued for more than a year. Nearly 19 million social welfare beneficiaries enrolled in a novel biometric identification scheme that uses fingerprints and voice recognition to authenticate social grant recipients. This article seeks to understand the meaning of biometric technology in post-apartheid South African welfare through a stud…
The rise of African SIM registration
The African experience with mobile telephony has been extolled as a defining moment in the continent’s contemporary economic, social, and political development. Yet SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) registration schemes are threatening to throttle the technology’s developmental potential. These mandates, which require the registration of identity information to activate a mobile SIM card, are fast becoming universal in Africa, with little to no pu…
Development' as ifWe Have Never Been Modern
The work of the French anthropologist-cum-philosopher Bruno Latour has influenced a wide variety of disciplines in the past three decades. Yet, Latour has had little noticeable effect within development studies, including those sub-fields where it might be reasonable to expect affinity, such as the anthropology of development. The first half of this article outlines some core aspects of Latour's oeuvre as they relate to development and anthropolo…
The rise of the randomistas
In recent years, the use of experimental methodologies has emerged as a central means of evaluating international aid interventions. Today, proponents of randomized control trials (so-called randomistas) are among the most influential of development experts. This paper examines the growth of this thought collective, analysing how uncertainty has become a central concern of development institutions. It demonstrates that transformations within the …
Infrastructuring aid
In numerous African countries humanitarian and development organizations-as well as governments-are expanding expenditures on social protection schemes as a means of poverty alleviation. These initiatives, which typically provide small cash grants to poor populations, are often considered particularly agreeable for the simplicity of their administration and the feasibility of their implementation. This paper examines the background work required …
The Biometric Imaginary
Starting in March 2012, the South African government engaged in a massive effort of citizen registration that continued for more than a year. Nearly 19 million social welfare beneficiaries enrolled in a novel biometric identification scheme that uses fingerprints and voice recognition to authenticate social grant recipients. This article seeks to understand the meaning of biometric technology in post-apartheid South African welfare through a stud…
Knowledge/Seizure
This article examines the growth in mobile phone‐based lending in Kenya, where millions now borrow from services that translate digital data into credit scores. Reeling from ongoing retrenchment and marketisation, many find themselves turning to expensive, short‐term credit to “buy time”. We depart from actuarial approaches to the digital economy that foreground the technical analysis of data in order to emphasise the importance of racialised exp…
Algorithmic Intimacy
English Abstract: Kenya is a frontier market for 'financial technology', or FinTech. This industry - which merges mobile telephony and digital data with commercial lending - has grown spectacularly, with millions of Kenyans borrowing for household, emergency, and commercial expenses. This industry's frenzied growth has been fuelled by not merely the pursuit of profit, but also a decidedly more developmental aspiration, namely 'financial inclusion…
Capitalizing Africa
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Development' as ifWe Have Never Been Modern
The work of the French anthropologist-cum-philosopher Bruno Latour has influenced a wide variety of disciplines in the past three decades. Yet, Latour has had little noticeable effect within development studies, including those sub-fields where it might be reasonable to expect affinity, such as the anthropology of development. The first half of this article outlines some core aspects of Latour's oeuvre as they relate to development and anthropolo…
Magendo
This article examines the ambiguities of arbitrage, focusing on illegal coffee trade across the Uganda-Kenya border. I show how residents of the borderlands harnessed ordinary tools (gunny sacks, tin cans, and gravity scales) and cultural repertoires (kinship, language, and ritual) to cultivate and capitalize on difference. They reworked territorial jurisdiction, measurement standards, and surface appearances in a form of arbitrage known as magen…
Uhuru Sasa! Federal Futures and Liminal Sovereignty in Decolonizing East Africa
Decolonization in East Africa was a regional affair that required the remaking of temporal orders. The staggered independence timelines of Tanganyika, Uganda, and Kenya caused considerable consternation due to transnational solidarities and visions for East African Federation. The interminable delays of Kenyan decolonization also threatened the linked economy of the region and diluted the sovereignty of neighboring states. At issue was 'liminal s…
The rise of African SIM registration
The African experience with mobile telephony has been extolled as a defining moment in the continent’s contemporary economic, social, and political development. Yet SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) registration schemes are threatening to throttle the technology’s developmental potential. These mandates, which require the registration of identity information to activate a mobile SIM card, are fast becoming universal in Africa, with little to no pu…
Development' as ifWe Have Never Been Modern
The work of the French anthropologist-cum-philosopher Bruno Latour has influenced a wide variety of disciplines in the past three decades. Yet, Latour has had little noticeable effect within development studies, including those sub-fields where it might be reasonable to expect affinity, such as the anthropology of development. The first half of this article outlines some core aspects of Latour's oeuvre as they relate to development and anthropolo…
New surveillance technologies and their publics
Before a newly-elected government abandoned the project in 2010, for at least eight years the British state actively sought to introduce a mandatory national identification scheme for which the science and technology of biometrics was central. Throughout the effort, government representatives attempted to portray biometrics as a technology that was easily understandable and readily accepted by the public. However, neither task was straightforward…
Infrastructuring aid
In numerous African countries humanitarian and development organizations-as well as governments-are expanding expenditures on social protection schemes as a means of poverty alleviation. These initiatives, which typically provide small cash grants to poor populations, are often considered particularly agreeable for the simplicity of their administration and the feasibility of their implementation. This paper examines the background work required …
The Biometric Imaginary
Starting in March 2012, the South African government engaged in a massive effort of citizen registration that continued for more than a year. Nearly 19 million social welfare beneficiaries enrolled in a novel biometric identification scheme that uses fingerprints and voice recognition to authenticate social grant recipients. This article seeks to understand the meaning of biometric technology in post-apartheid South African welfare through a stud…
How Our Days Became Numbered
“Financial Inclusion Means Your Money Isn’t with You”
The rise of the randomistas
In recent years, the use of experimental methodologies has emerged as a central means of evaluating international aid interventions. Today, proponents of randomized control trials (so-called randomistas) are among the most influential of development experts. This paper examines the growth of this thought collective, analysing how uncertainty has become a central concern of development institutions. It demonstrates that transformations within the …
Magendo
This article examines the ambiguities of arbitrage, focusing on illegal coffee trade across the Uganda-Kenya border. I show how residents of the borderlands harnessed ordinary tools (gunny sacks, tin cans, and gravity scales) and cultural repertoires (kinship, language, and ritual) to cultivate and capitalize on difference. They reworked territorial jurisdiction, measurement standards, and surface appearances in a form of arbitrage known as magen…
Knowledge/Seizure
This article examines the growth in mobile phone‐based lending in Kenya, where millions now borrow from services that translate digital data into credit scores. Reeling from ongoing retrenchment and marketisation, many find themselves turning to expensive, short‐term credit to “buy time”. We depart from actuarial approaches to the digital economy that foreground the technical analysis of data in order to emphasise the importance of racialised exp…
Algorithmic Intimacy
English Abstract: Kenya is a frontier market for 'financial technology', or FinTech. This industry - which merges mobile telephony and digital data with commercial lending - has grown spectacularly, with millions of Kenyans borrowing for household, emergency, and commercial expenses. This industry's frenzied growth has been fuelled by not merely the pursuit of profit, but also a decidedly more developmental aspiration, namely 'financial inclusion…
Capitalizing Africa
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
The role of labor market frictions in structural transformation
Growth is closely related to structural transformation, the reallocation of economic activity among sectors. A well-functioning labor market plays an important role in this process by enabling workers to find employment in the growing, more productive sectors. We review the literature on labor market frictions that limit worker flows, slow structural transformation, and trap workers in poverty. The three main areas of focus are the extent of sect…
Uhuru Sasa! Federal Futures and Liminal Sovereignty in Decolonizing East Africa
Decolonization in East Africa was a regional affair that required the remaking of temporal orders. The staggered independence timelines of Tanganyika, Uganda, and Kenya caused considerable consternation due to transnational solidarities and visions for East African Federation. The interminable delays of Kenyan decolonization also threatened the linked economy of the region and diluted the sovereignty of neighboring states. At issue was 'liminal s…
Money, Value, and the State
Decolonization in East Africa was more than a political event: it was a step towards economic self-determination. In this innovative book, historian and anthropologist Kevin Donovan analyses the contradictions of economic sovereignty and citizenship in Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda, placing money, credit, and smuggling at the center of the region's shifting fortunes. Using detailed archival and ethnographic research undertaken across the region, Don…
Disciplining Citizens and Commodities
In 1975, the Ugandan state established an Economic Crimes Tribunal to investigate and penalize smuggling, hoarding, overcharging, and other commercial malfeasance. In the coming years, innumerable Ugandans were arrested and charged with contravening the state's economic regulations. Prior observers have seen this as another instance of a capricious state, but in this article, I demonstrate the popular investment in economic regulation. Ugandans d…
Withholding-while-Giving
This paper develops an account of parastatal governance, in which putatively distinct organizational forms – private corporation and public state – cohabitate. It does so through Safaricom, Kenya's largest firm. Known for telecommunications and mobile money services, Safaricom does much more than commerce. It is a chief promulgator of patriotism and is expected by Kenyans to provide what elsewhere might be considered ‘public goods’: famine relief…
Political science (14 obras) · Economics (10 obras) · Sociology (9 obras) · Law (8 obras) · Business (5 obras) · Finance (5 obras) · Law (5 obras) · Political economy (5 obras) · Politics (5 obras) · Computer Science (4 obras)