Revisiting the Fishers of Kerala, India

In this paper, we revisit a study that has become canonical in ICTD, economist Robert Jensen’s study of mobile phone use in fishing markets in north Kerala. Jensen found that the use of mobile phones to share market price information made fish markets more efficient while also improving producer and consumer welfare. Based on our own ethnographic case study in the region, our goal is to understand the geographic and political-economic conditions in which Jensen’s findings hold and to examine questions of generalizability. We show that what makes the fish trade in north Kerala a special case is, in part, due to its coastal geography and prevalent credit relationships that provided fishers the flexibility to optimize profits by selling at different markets. However, we also found that those working in various roles in Kerala’s fishing industry emphasized more broadly the use of phones in maintaining trade relations, facilitating coordination, and protecting themselves during times of risk, vulnerability, or emergency. We suggest that parsimonious models, such as Jensen’s, can generate blind spots, which are problematic when such studies are used to draw broader conclusions about policy and technology design.