Informality and Consumption: Navigating Marketplaces in Bangalore, India

Abstract

Sadar Patrappa (SP) Road, a crowded 1 km stretch of road in the city of Bangalore, India, has been the primary location for buying and repairing technology goods in the region since the late-1960s. Even with the influx of formal retail stores and electronic commerce, this traditional marketplace remains an important shopping destination and plays an important role in extending access of technology goods and services to low and middle-income consumers.

This thesis investigates the underlying social and technical infrastructures along with the role of informality in organizing and regulating this marketplace. Informality allows marketplaces such as SP Road to be flexible in adapting to environmental changes and finding informal workarounds around formal regulations. Applying the lenses of informality and practice theory, I assess the role of institutions and practices in sustaining such traditional marketplaces along with shaping the consumption of technology goods and services. I argue that the persistence of marketplaces is a result of the inertia of existing practices, with the success of a new technology contingent on its ability to integrate into practices.

The thesis further looks at the high-profile entry of online marketplaces and their impact on traditional marketplaces. I outline the institutional, infrastructural, and cultural forces that shape the use and non-use of-of online marketplaces by buyers. In contrast to the view of the ‘non-user’ as not being innovative or tech-savvy enough, use and non-use are instead related to the ability (or inability) of a technology artefact or service to integrate itself with the practices of everyday life. The entry of new technologies, such as online marketplaces, is further accompanied by ambiguity and communication channels play an important role in the negotiation of technologies by local communities. I argue that informal communication, such as rumors, are attempts at collective sensemaking. Further, through highlighting the relationship of institutional trust with informality, this thesis discusses how studying informality can help in understanding technology adoption and use in the face of differential power relations.