Market Practices and the Bazaar: Technology Consumption in ICT Markets in the Global South
Abstract
Local informal markets or bazaars play a central role in embedding the adoption, consumption, and reproduction of digital technologies within the economic and cultural fabric of the Global South. This paper presents ethnographic accounts of informal ICT markets in two sites, one in India and the other in Bangladesh, and assesses how technology consumption unfolds within local practices. Building on social practice theory, this paper depicts the role of materiality, relationships, and situated knowledge in the functioning of a bazaar. We discuss how this knowledge expands our understanding of the evaluation of technology and technical expertise, and the persistence of these informal spaces despite the uptake of corporatized technology marketplaces. We argue that the bazaar represents a special kind of local voice that enriches the HCI scholarship in postcolonial computing.
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Adoption of technology is deeply influenced by cultural context, and technological analyses of impact and use cannot be universally applied or ported over.
“Works of Irani [56], Raval [91], Ahmed [3], Chandra [25], Das [31], and Kumar [66], amongst others, have shown us that adoption of technology is deeply influenced by cultural context, and as such, technological analyses of impact and use cannot be universally applied or ported over.”
From AI and Non-Western Art Worlds: Reimagining Critical AI Futures through Artistic Inquiry and Situated Dialogue (2025) · cites this paper as [25]
Cites
Knowing in Practice: Enacting a Collective Capability in Distributed Organizing
Orlikowski, W. J. (2002) · Organization Science · doi:10.1287/orsc.13.3.249.2776 · Cited by 3,021 · see citing works
Friedman, B. (1996) · Interactions · doi:10.1145/242485.242493 · Cited by 966 · cited 1× · see citing works
“Practice theory is helpful in reconceptualizing the core assumptions of the Value Sensitive Design paradigm [17,37], which has for several years been a means of looking at stakeholder values and their effects on artifacts or technology design and adoption.”
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Engaging Solidarity in Data Collection Practices for Community Health
Ismail, A., & Kumar, N. (2018) · Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction · doi:10.1145/3274345 · Cited by 78 · see citing works
Pal, J., Chandra, P., Kameswaran, V., Parameshwar, A., Joshi, S., & Johri, A. (2018) · Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3173574.3173803 · Cited by 61 · see citing works
Self-citationCulturally sensitive user interface design: a case study with German and Vietnamese users
Lachner, F., Nguyen, M.-A., & Butz, A. (2018) · Proceedings of the Second African Conference for Human Computer Interaction: Thriving Communities · doi:10.1145/3283458.3283459 · Cited by 19 · see citing works
Qadri, R., Mirowski, P., & Denton, R. (2025) · Proceedings of the 2025 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3706598.3714049 · Cited by 12 · see citing works
- Authors
- Chandra, P., Ahmed, S. I., & Pal, J.
- Affiliations
- University of Michigan (US)
- Cornell University (US)
- Venue
- Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
- Publisher
- ACM
- Published
- 2017-05-02
- Pages
- 4741-4752
- OpenAlex
- W2611515421
- Cited by
- 47
- References
- 2
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 8 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 7 · 2021: 8 · 2020: 1 · 2019: 6 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 1
- FWCI
- 2.52
- Type
- conference paper
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › ICT in Developing Communities
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Business and International Management › Innovation and Socioeconomic Development
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Information Systems Theories and Implementation
- Keywords
- bazaars, technology consumption, social practice theory, materiality, situated knowledge, technical expertise, evaluation of technology, Global South, India, Bangladesh
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