Paper short abstract:

Based on ethnographic fieldwork in West Africa, the paper explores how mundane devices and economists in the wild intervene in the design, setup and eventual failure of an insurance market at the borderlands of global finance

Paper long abstract:

At weather stations, rain is measured with a rainfall gauge - a cylindrical copper container with a collecting can and a copper funnel. Rain falls over the funnel and trickles into the can. At regular intervals, an officer pours the water into a graduated glass jar. With the help of the jar, water is translated into numbers, numbers that are written into tables, tables that travel from remote areas to national centers of calculation. Here, rainfall data is digitized and appears in a powerful spreadsheet. Why does this practice matter? Rain in the form of a spreadsheet column is one of the basic elements of an experimental insurance market in West Africa. To manage climate change related risks, African smallholders are expected to purchase a weather index insurance. The insurance contracts are tied to rainfall at particular weather station. In cases of drought or excess rainfall, a payout is triggered. This simple market comes with complex problems. First, copper gauges are stolen, glass jars are broken and rain is "lost". Second, farmers do not easily value insurances as technologies of risk to master time and govern uncertain futures. Here behavioral (development) economists intervene with behavioral engineering measures to turn farmers into calculative agencies capable of evaluating the commodified risk.

Based on ethnographic fieldwork in West Africa, the paper explores how mundane devices and economists in the wild are fundamental elements of the design, setup and eventual failure of an insurance market at the borderlands of global finance.