New research

I am currently exploring the promises and social life of cryptocurrencies, particularly Bitcoin, in the context of aid and development. My work examines how digital currencies are mobilized as tools for financial inclusion and humanitarian relief—technologies that promise emancipation and freedom from government control in isolated communities, where the state is often absent or carries a poor reputation—while also tracing the rise of scam cultures and speculative economies that surround them.

Rather than reducing Bitcoin to its notoriety for fraud or hype, I approach it as a cultural and economic phenomenon worth studying in its own right. I focus on the meanings, aspirations, and infrastructures that emerge around cryptocurrency use in the Global South, especially how communities engage with, repurpose, or resist these technologies in everyday life.

Dissertation

My dissertation titled “Banking on the Unbanked: Everyday Peripheral Technologies for Mobile Money in Peru” examines how financial technologies shape daily life, focusing on a national mobile money initiative in Peru. While fintech is often promoted as a tool for empowerment, my fieldwork with engineers, policymakers, bank representatives, and everyday users revealed a more complex reality—one where digital payment systems often reinforce existing inequalities rather than solve them.

In 2016, an association of Peruvian banks launched a mobile money platform promising financial inclusion for the 70% of Peruvians living in so-called informal cash economies. Marketed as a step toward modern banking, this initiative also aligned with global development goals, such as the World Bank’s push for ‘universal financial access by 2020.’ But what does financial inclusion actually look like in practice? Based on ethnographic fieldwork, my research follows the engineers designing the technology, the regulators shaping policy, and the shopkeepers and low-income users navigating these new financial infrastructures in their daily lives.

Rather than a straightforward story of financial expansion, my work highlights the tensions, learning processes, and unintended consequences that emerge when new money infrastructures meet local realities. I explore how digital finance reshapes expertise, labor, and economic opportunities—sometimes in ways that further capitalize on the resources of those at the margins rather than opening new possibilities for them. These insights fuel my broader interest in tech regulation, AI governance, and the financial well-being of young people in an increasingly digital world.

I invite you to read the front matter and introduction, entitled “A Corner Shop Universe Navigating Financialization.”