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Paper short abstract

This study explores how digital technologies reshape informal rural markets in Africa. Drawing on institutional theory, we show how a digital tractor-sharing app disrupts existing practices in Ghana, undermining established informal arrangements. We discuss the unintended consequences of ICT4Agr.

Paper long abstract

How do digital technologies affect informal economies in rural African settings? This

mixed-method study from Ghana’s Volta region examines how smallholder farmers

access tractors through commoning—a practice of shared resource governance rooted

in relational ethics, reciprocity, negotiation, and conflict resolution. Drawing on

institutional theory, we show how commoning reshapes the nature of social goods

(here: tractor services), challenging classical notions of rivalry and excludability.

We then explore how a digital tractor-sharing app disrupts these informal

arrangements and the social institutions that underpin them. We draw on the concept

of digital enclosure, arguing that digital apps reconfigure access to shared resources

by imposing new technological and economic constraints. The ability to match supply

and demand at scale is predicated on the apps’ capacity to delineate and restrict

access, replacing localized, relational negotiations with transactional logics dictated by

proprietary algorithms. As a result, traditional forms of collective governance give way

to marketized forms of access, deepening disparities in resource distribution and

reinforcing digital hierarchies within agrarian economies. At the same time, we stress

that technological effects are not determined by design alone. We document how

farmers and tractor operators actively resist digital enclosures, disabling the app

features (GPS trackers) that conflict with local rules of access.

We highlight how digital technology may undermine informal institutions and their

capacity to support equitable resource sharing. Our findings contribute to debates on

the ‘ICT revolution’ in African agriculture by revealing the unintended consequences of

technological interventions.