BARA's new e-development initiative explores how various web-assisted models of development models may be used to enhance livelihoods of the impoverished and marginalized populations of the world. This initiative is based on the premise that in much of the developing world the poor have little access wider markets. The problem they face is that even when they have a product to sell, middlemen dominate access to wider markets; and, prices tend to be low because of market distortions. Part of the solution would seem to lie in creating more direct linkages between producer and consumers. This solution points in the direction of niche markets and the use of the web to open markets for niche products. While anthropology has a tradition of studying market systems-- looking at agents and their strategies, and market function and structure, and market channels, important questions remain unanswered about cyberspace markets, e-commerce transactions, the transfer of technologies and skills, and how web access might play across class and gender lines, fit with existing economic activities, create vulnerabilities, and fit into livelihood strategies. In this research initiative we hope to learn both what works and what doesn't, and what models of web-assisted developments could be replicated elsewhere to enhance the livelihoods of the poor. Although the challenges are great, as part of this initiative we trying both to assess what has been tried, and to develop better models to assist communities in the third world sell products more directly on the web.

For further information, please contact Jim Greenberg.