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We welcome our Distinguished Speaker, Dr. Hsain Ilahiane, who comes from Mississippi State University!
Dr. Ilahiane is a Cultural Anthropologist whose areas of theoretical interest are development, poverty, globalization, applied anthropology, economic anthropology, and political ecology. His talk will examine ways Moroccan smallholder farmers deploy mobile phones to revise their relationships with markets and roving middlemen and how mobile phone use has transformed farmers’ economic behavior.
The talk will be from 1:00 to 2:00 PM, with refreshments to follow after. This event will be open to the public. Please RSVP here: https://qfreeaccountssjc1.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_0IGRFNp3e727qse
You may also Zoom into the event here: https://arizona.zoom.us/s/89092209412#success
Abstract: In this paper, I first examine the ways Moroccan smallholder farmers deploy mobile phones to revise their relationships with markets and roving middlemen. Second, based on a mixed method of participant observation and survey data, I claim that mobile phone use has transformed farmers’ economic behavior, resulting in deeper market participation and the gradual undoing of the role of middlemen in the agricultural value chain. Finally, I contend that farmers’ use of mobile phones to synthesize market information from different marketplaces does not only unsettle Clifford Geertz’s arguments on information search strategies in the suq economy, but it also renders the centrality of his notions of intensive bargaining and clientilisation far less important than it used to be before the onset of mobile pho