Week 8 Prompt: Money
MONEY — Harvard history professor Niall Ferguson wrote in The Ascent of Money that “poverty is not the result of rapacious financiers exploiting the poor.” Instead, he argued, it results from “the lack of financial institutions, from the absence of banks, not their presence.” (13) Ferguson’s point here is perhaps counterintuitive—since without financial institutions, and without any money, poverty as such has little frame of reference. Indeed, as these complexities and others like them perhaps suggest, our relationship with money is often strained and difficult, contentious and potentially (self-)destructive. It may be true that money “makes the world go around,” but it also establishes clear lines between the “haves” and “have-nots.” This week, pay attention to money. What is the local currency? How is money accessed? (ATM, brick-and-mortar bank branches, a black market?) How is it most commonly used? (Cash, credit, check, some other means?) Do people have easy access to financial institutions? If not, do people around you consider themselves “poor?” Photograph something related to money, or something you believe embodies the cultural attitude toward it.
Reflecting on the four months I spent in South Africa, I primarily used cash as my main way to purchase items. ATMs were somewhat reliable throughout the locations I traveled to. The currency used is called the South African Rand which is made up of paper dollars as well as coins. The coins go up to 5 rand while the bills start at 10 rand. The exchange rate while I was in South Africa was 12 Rand to 1 USD. Most restaurants and shops accepted credit cards. Unfortunately, in my time there I did not photograph any of the money I possessed. I found that the financial institutions available entirely changed depending on my location. For examples, my weeks in Cape Town and Johannesburg offered many more options in terms of available banks and ways to access money. Meanwhile, in a few of the nature conservancy’s I stayed on we had no access to ATMs or stores for that matter. One of the most expensive things to access in South Africa is cell phone and/or internet data. As a group, we consistently had problems accessing internet for our projects because in more rural areas it is hardly ever offered for free. At one location, wifi was offered 100MB for 150 Rand, which does not go far when powering computers for research projects.
I am going to use this prompt to talk about a brief part of my program, a home stay in the chieftaincy of HaMakuya. I stayed in a village within the chieftaincy for a total of four days and was offered the briefest glimpses into the lives of people who live very differently from how I do. The home stay was a challenging time for me because I did not feel like we as a group offered enough back to the community we lived with. We were welcomed with open arms but this welcome was also wrapped into the financial gain we could bring them and the power and privilege our primarily white group had. Aside from my complicated feelings about being there, I did enjoy the opportunity to experience a different style of life. The people in the chieftaincy, speaking primarily from the women I interacted with, lived a life with television and telephones, yet no running water inside the house. Our presence stepping in, as one of many groups who come into the community, in my opinion helps to perpetuate the idea that people from outside the chieftaincy have more than within. I myself contributed to their own perceptions of being “poor” because, after noticing my small silver ring I always wear, a friend of my host mother commented how she would love to have something so beautiful from her husband. I myself contributed to the perception of the “have and have-nots”. I was grateful to be so welcomed by my family while feeling uncomfortable about the privileged reasons which afforded me welcome.