This paper describes an analog chat network in Bandung, Indonesia known as ‘interkom.’ Interkom is a network that links together the homes, food stalls and farms of a segment of Bandung’s urban and peri-urban underclass. Interkom is interesting because it provides the occasion for users to reflect upon and manipulate the material and ideological conditions that shape experiences of self, talk a...

The transition from the modern world of the postwar period into late modernity involves a movement from an inclusive to an exclusive society. This is concomitant with a change in tolerance from a society which abhors difference and attempts to reform difficulty to one which celebrates difference and attempts to exclude the difficult. Two motifs of exclusion coexist uneasily in late modernity, t...

Concern with the prospects and experience of the ‘new’ second generation now stands at the top of the immigration research agenda in the United States. In contrast to the past, many immigrant offspring appear to be rapidly heading upward, exemplified by the large number of Chinese, Korean, Indian and other Asian-origin students enrolled in the nation’s leading universities, some the children of...

The Dutch East India Company (VOC) intended the Cape of Good Hope to be a refreshment stop for ships travelling between the Netherlands and its eastern colonies. The indigenous Khoisan, however, did not constitute an adequate workforce, therefore the VOC imported slaves from East Africa, Madagascar and Asia to expand the workforce. Cape Town became a cosmopolitan settlement with different categ...

This study uses discourse analysis to examine the representation of violence against African American women in local TV news coverage of Freaknik, an annual “spring break” ritual that drew African American college students from throughout the country to Atlanta, Georgia in the 1990s. It draws on Black feminist theory in its examination of the ways that gender, race, and class intersected to sha...

Consumer groups fear that the use of genetic testing information in insurance underwriting might lead to the creation of an underclass of individuals who cannot obtain insurance; thus, these groups want to ban insurance companies from accessing genetic test results. Insurers contend that such a ban might lead to adverse selection that could threaten their financial solvency. To investigate the ...

Cross-border reproductive care has been thrust under the international spotlight by a series of recent scandals. These have prompted calls to develop more robust means of assessing the exploitative potential of such practices and the need for overarching and normative forms of national and international regulation. Allied theorisations of the emergence of forms of clinical labour have cast the ...

Social exclusion is a multi dimensional phenomenon that manifests itself in the exclusion of an individual from one or more of the four following activities: production of goods and services, consumption, civil engagement, and social interaction. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) have been argued to have the potential to reduce these forms of social exclusion. However, the exten...

I use a randomized field experiment in Malawi to identify the effects of formal savings adoption in villages on inter-household transfers, and to isolate spillover effects on non-savers. My findings highlight that general equilibrium effects of development projects, though commonly overlooked, can be very important. They also explore the effectiveness of a novel method to spur formal services a...

A model of social interactions shows why and when reputation concerns may support an ‘underclass’ culture of street crime where the incentives for such behavior are otherwise weak. Those who do not gain from street crime directly nevertheless find it optimal to invest in violence and thereby build a reputation that will earn them deference from the rest of the community. Even when the fraction ...