Symbolic practices and power asymmetries in ICT4D projects: The case of an Indian Agricultural Marketing Board

Abstract

Information and communications technology can be used to improve the social and economic situation in developing countries. However, a broad range of challenges has been identified, and one of these relates to the power asymmetries in developing countries. These power asymmetries are often deeply entrenched. We conducted an in-depth critical case study of an information and communication technology for development project in India. We looked at the historical and cultural context, the roles of the actors, and the use of symbolic practices. Using Bourdieu’s theory of practice and, in particular, his concept of habitus, our findings reveal how symbolic practices can work against ICT projects in developing countries. These symbolic practices, rooted in a particular culture, are tied to and constitutive of power asymmetries. We offer a framework for studying habitus in information systems research on information and communication technology for development that may be useful for others who wish to explore similar questions in their case study research.

Keywords

Symbolic practices power information systems ICT4D agriculture critical research case study research Bourdieu India

Introduction

Within the information systems (IS) research community, there is growing interest in research on information and communication technology for development (ICT4D) and information systems in developing countries (ISDC). This interest is reflected in dedicated journals and special issues of information system journals (Majchrzak et al., 2012), as well as dedicated tracks in our premier IS conferences. One reason for the interest is that most of the world’s population is located in developing countries, and in these countries, people earn less than US$1.25 a day (Van der Ploeg, 2012). Many global organizations, governments, and development agencies want to improve the socio-economic situation in these countries. Information and communications technology (ICT) can play an important role in achieving this (Walsham and Sahay, 2006).

However, while there have been some successful initiatives, many ICT4D projects are unsuccessful. The reasons for such failure are varied. Some studies have suggested that ICTs in developing countries are leveraged for their ceremonial functions and not their developmental potentials (Noir and Walsham, 2007). Other studies have suggested that successful ICT4D initiatives may contribute to the further marginalization of underprivileged communities (Lin et al., 2015). Yet other studies have focused on how cultural aspects may restrict ICT4D projects from achieving their full potential (Corbett and Keller, 2004; De Souza e Silva et al., 2011).

In this article, we focus on this last aspect, that is, how cultural aspects may inhibit ICT4D projects. How culture may inhibit ICT4D projects is not well understood. We discuss how symbolic practices, rooted in a particular culture, are tied to and constitutive of power asymmetries, and how these power asymmetries can work against ICT4D projects. While many IS studies have focused on the relationships between power and information technology implementation (Jasperson et al., 2002; Levina and Vaast, 2005), recent IS research has hinted at power asymmetries between the various stakeholders as being one of the keys to a better understanding of ICT4D projects (Lin et al., 2015). Hence, the relationship between culture and power needs further exploration. This is the gap in the IS research literature that we seek to address.

The purpose of this study, therefore, is to provide an in-depth exploration of how symbolic practices are tied to and constitutive of power asymmetries, and how these power asymmetries can work against ICT projects in developing countries. Our research question is as follows: how do symbolic practices enable or impede ICT4D projects? To provide an answer to this question, we conducted a critical case study of an ICT4D project in one of the states in India. Case study research is appropriate given that we needed to look at one ICT4D project in depth.

We draw on Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of practice, which provides a useful tool for studying symbolic practices, culture, and power (Wacquant, 2013: 276). The theory places emphasis on the history and context of practices (Navarro, 2006) and on the analysis of the roles of all actors (Arnholtz and Hammerslev, 2013: 58). The theory has proved useful in IS research generally and in agricultural settings in India in particular (Carolan, 2005; Olsen and Neff, 2007; Raedeke et al., 2003; Vasan, 2007).

Hence, the main contribution of this article is to reveal how symbolic practices can work against ICT projects in developing countries. These symbolic practices, rooted in a particular culture, are tied to and constitutive of power asymmetries. Of course, we are not suggesting that culture is necessarily a barrier to ICT. Culture can also enable ICT development. However, in our particular case, it was the symbolic practices, rooted in the local culture, that doomed the ICT4D project to fail.

The remainder of the article is organized as follows. In the next section, we discuss Bourdieu’s theory of practice. In section “Research method”, we present the research method. This section is followed by a description of the case study in section “Case study.” In section “Data analysis”, we analyze the power asymmetries in the case using Bourdieu’s theory of practice. The final two sections are discussion and conclusions.

Bourdieu’s theory of practice

Bourdieu’s theory of practice explains the inter-relationships between practices of agents and their social structures. According to Bourdieu, the social world is relational, and this relational aspect is through the positions that individuals occupy within fields. Positions have constraints embedded in them in the form of class-based tastes and dispositions (Bourdieu, 1984: 174), which he calls the habitus. These dispositions are manifested as people occupy different positions. For example, Bourdieu presents the case of peasants in rural France who refrain from participating in the village ball because they have internalized a specific image of a peasant. According to Bourdieu,

Placed in such a situation, the peasant is led to internalize the image that others form of him . . . He comes to perceive his body as a body marked by social stamp, . . . as an “em-peasanted” body, bearing the trace of the attitudes and activities associated with peasant life. So he is embarrassed by his body and in his body . . . This unhappy consciousness of his body . . . excludes him from the dance . . . (Bourdieu and Nice, 2008: 86)

The relationship between the positions that people occupy is a power relationship, the objective of which is dominance. This relationship is objective because the relationship does not mutate even when there are changes in the occupant. Thus, fields are structured spaces of positions and a “terrain of contestation between occupants of positions” (Emirbayer and Johnson, 2008: 6).

According to Bourdieu, the use of power requires legitimacy, and culture is a means of securing this legitimacy. An essential part of this legitimation is with the use of symbolic practices that serve the purpose of “misrecognition,” that is, a claim that there are not just economic and material interests involved in a particular practice, but other, more important cultural values.

Symbolic capital is a form of power that is usually perceived as philanthropic or benevolent and is considered as legitimate (Swartz, 1996: 77).

Navarro (2006) summarizes some of the key themes related to power in Bourdieu’s theory of practice. These key themes are listed in Table 1 below.

Table 1.

Key themes in the study of power using Bourdieu’s theory (adapted from Navarro, 2006).

	Themes in the study of power
1.	Methods that are suitable for the identification of people with power
2.	Embedding power in social structures to control the trajectories of the people
3.	Conditions that increase or decrease power
4.	Attitudinal changes (organizational/ individual) that are outcomes of power
5.	A subtle effect of power maneuvering on individual autonomy and discretion
6.	Forms and patterns of exercising power (persuasion, coercion, etc.)
7.	Critiquing the manifestations of power

One way of studying power in a field is to identify the actors and institutions in the field and then to study how the field has changed. For example, while studying French housing policy, Bourdieu chose to study the set of bureaucrats who were instrumental in changing French housing policy. Another way of studying power is to look at the symbolic practices that were used as justification for the creation of an institution or situation. For example, Bourdieu studied the formation of the European Union through the theories that discussed the creation of such a union (Arnholtz and Hammerslev, 2013: 56–58).

The study of habitus can also be a vital tool in the analysis of power. Habitus is conceptualized as a dynamic concept that is always in communication with itself. During such transformations, the habitus remains divided as a primary habitus and secondary habitus (Grillo, 2018).

No matter which way of studying power is chosen, empirical work requires reflexivity (Bigo, 2011). Wacquant (2018: 11) identifies “epistemic reflexivity” as one of the five pillars of Bourdieu’s work. It also requires openness and questioning of culture and cultural values and how these are related to symbolic forms of power.

Research method

Recent studies have called for greater use of critical research in ICT4D research (Lin et al., 2015; Sahay and Walsham, 2014). We used critical case study research to study an ICT4D project in one of the states in India. The current study is critical as it critiques current social practices and focuses on the power structures that lie behind accepted interpretations (Myers and Klein, 2011). Our study is oriented toward transforming the existing social conditions of the farmers as opposed to merely explaining or predicting them. Our research method is thus consistent with Bourdieu’s critical theory of practice, given that Bourdieu himself is considered to be a critical social theorist.

Data collection

The data for our study were collected by the first author, who is originally from India and familiar with the local culture. He used semi-structured interviews and field visits to four market yards of Madhya Pradesh, one of the states of India. Data collection started in January 2009 with a meeting with the director of the agricultural marketing board to gain an initial understanding of the project. Subsequently, meetings with the regional directors were undertaken to identify the yards where the project was fully operational. Field visits were made to six yards of the state, and finally, four yards were chosen based on transaction volumes, the uniqueness of trade, and accessibility. For example, one yard had the highest transaction volume in the state and was the first to implement the IS project. The commodities traded in this yard included grains and spices. The second was unique as it only catered to the trade of fruits and vegetables. The third was located in the big cotton belt of the state and traded both cotton and grains. The fourth had lower trade volumes. All the four yards were different in some way and enabled us to capture data from yards with different contexts and histories.

In the yards, interviews were undertaken with government officers, private vendor employees, traders, and farmers. The interviews were followed by field visits to the yards and farms. The details of the interviews are included in Appendix I.

The collected data were in the form of field notes, audio transcripts, and photographs. The field notes and audio transcripts were coded using the guidelines for thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2006). To identify the major themes, we followed the constant comparative method (Boeije, 2002). Using this method, we coded each interview within the stakeholder group and wrote a summary of each interview. Following this, we generated initial codes that reflected the concerns of the stakeholders. For example, if a government official mentioned, “the working for us was too hectic . . .” we gave an initial code “overburdened employee.” We then compared the codes and summaries of the interviews and refined as needed. Next, we compared the interview summaries to develop an overall thematic relationship for a stakeholder group. For example, the summarized farmer interviews were all compared with each other to create an overarching theme for the farmer group. Finally, we compared the thematic relationship of all four stakeholder groups to develop the main themes for the entire case.

Case study

The state of Madhya Pradesh

Our case study research was conducted in the Central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. The state has a total population of over 70 million. Over 70% of the state’s population is rural. The state is a leading producer of various agricultural commodities in India and occupies a top position in India in the production of soybean, gram, oilseeds, pulses, linseed, and maize (National Horticulture Mission, 2005).

Administratively, the state has 50 districts. Each district is further broken into sub-districts, towns, blocks, and villages. There are slightly over 50,000 villages in the state. The representation of the people in the state is through the democratic institutions that start at the village level and continue to the level of the state parliament. The literacy rate of the state is just above 70%.

Within each district, there are agriculture market yards where the farmers sell their commodities to traders. In the sub-sections below, we describe the cultural and historical context and the stakeholders in the ICT4D project.

Cultural and historical context

As both culture and history shape an understanding of what is appropriate behavior in a field (Scheer, 2012) and play a vital role in the formation of the habitus (Zembylas, 2007), we first of all situate the case in its cultural and historical context.

Many government and para-state organizations have attempted to improve the unfortunate social and economic situation of farmers in India over the years. The first regulatory law was enacted during British rule and was referred to as the Berar Cotton and Grain Market Law of 1897. This law was replaced by the Bombay Cotton Market Acts of 1927. The act stipulated the development of regulated markets for cotton controlled by a committee of cotton growers. The act specified the establishment of open yards, where the unbaled cotton of the farmers could be marketed (Singh, 2007).

Based on the Bombay Act of 1927, in 1952, the government of the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh formulated the Madhya Bharat Agriculture Produce Market’s Act. The state eventually saw some reorganization of its territories in 1956, and this created a situation whereby multiple regulatory acts were operating in the state. To remove this discrepancy, the Madhya Pradesh Agricultural Markets Act was passed in 1960. This act was later revised as the Madhya Pradesh Agricultural Commodity Act 1972, which stipulated the creation of the Madhya Pradesh State Agricultural Marketing Board. Subsequently, the Madhya Pradesh State Agricultural Marketing Board was formed on the recommendation of the National Agricultural Commission.

Most of these changes to the laws and institutions over the years were ostensibly made in the interest of farmers. However, there was little visible change on the ground. For example, despite the creation of the agricultural marketing board in 1972, one government official told us that no one was recruited to the board until 1981. However, even after recruitment drives in 1981 and 1984, the condition of the farmers did not improve.

Our discussions with government officers indicated that it was only in 1986 that the board began to take seriously the exploitation of farmers. In 1986, the board banned commissioning in some agricultural commodities. In addition, the government made policy changes so that the farmers could be paid in a timely and fair manner.

Until 1995, the yards were under the complete control of the agricultural department of the state government. The decision to constitute the yard committees was taken after 1995, and the directives were issued to the yards under the Madhya Pradesh Agricultural Commodity Yard (constitution of yard committee) Act, 1997. After the constitution of the committees in 1997, the board integrated the employees at the yards with those recruited through its recruitment drive. One government officer described this as follows:

In 1998, the yard secretary, assistant secretary, inspector, accountant, sub engineer, and assistant sub-inspectors were directly brought under the board services. However, the temporary employees, such as driver, plumber, fitter, electrician, were not absorbed by the board and were left with the yard committees. (GO4)

Before the year 2000, all the yards were governed by different laws formulated by the yards. However, a uniform code was suggested for all the yards in 2000. Although this uniform code was not mandatory, our discussions with the officers indicate that it was implemented in a manner that, in effect, made it compulsory for all the yards.

Table 2 below summarizes the key events involving the development of the yards.

Table 2.

Key events in the development of the yards.

Time	Event description
1965–1972	Formation of the agricultural marketing board
1981–1984	Primary recruitment drive of the board
1986	Banning of commissioning in some commodities
1990	Initiatives for faster payment to farmers
1997	Formation of yard committees in the state
1998	Integration of various human resource cadres
2000	Uniform code for all the yards
2004	Banning of commissioning in more commodities

We present statements from our interviewees about the history and the culture of the yard in Table 3. Previous studies have also discussed contextual factors such as corruption and rigid bureaucracy that characterize developing countries (Walsham, 2020).

Table 3.

Respondent excerpts on history and culture of agriculture marketing.

Interview Code	Data source	The theme of history and culture	Respondent statement
PV1	Private vendor employee	A long history of delaying the payments to the farmers	“In earlier times, the farmer would stand for hours altogether with the accountant of the trader. The accountant would keep him waiting for hours.”
GO4	Government officer	A long history of ignoring the rules and regulations	“That yard was full of middlemen. This system of intermediaries was stopped in 1986, but in that yard, it continued somehow until 1995. I was sent there as a member of the special team to stop this middlemen trade.”
GO4	Government officer	A long history of manipulations by the traders	“In the earlier system, a trader used to submit a periodic statement of the purchases. This statement included the price of the commodity and the quantity. The trader would correctly present the commodity purchased but manipulate the price.”
GO4	Government officer	The work culture of the yards	“Nothing can happen to me for such mistakes. The seniors cannot hang me. At most, they can stop my promotion . . .”
PV3	Private vendor employee	Bureaucratic culture	“If any senior officer comes for a yard visit, his expenses are borne by the juniors. However, I have never seen a junior claiming these expenses. Why does he not claim these expenses? Sometimes the juniors ask the private vendor employee to pay for these expenses.”
PV3	Private vendor employee	Corruption	“Even the political leader, when he comes to the yard, wants something. If the managing director comes to the yard, he wants to have his bag full. Government employees also want something. So if this style of working has to continue, computerization makes no sense at all.”
GO4	Government officer	Public sector organizational culture	“Since I arrive early at work, the staff of the other yards is unhappy. They reach their yards much later though their yards start earlier than mine. Their seniors rebuke them, giving my example. So they are now unhappy because of me.”
GO4	Government officer	Perceptions about the Indian culture	“Considering the overall trade volume of this yard, I have very few employees here of the management grade, such as Assistant Deputy Inspector. All I have are employees at the clerical or peon level. There are gatekeepers, peon, night watchmen, etc. So in India, no one cares about these matters.”

PV: private vendor; GO: government officer.

The stakeholders

While the agricultural supply chain is comprised of many stakeholders, we limit the scope of our study to the four main stakeholders that were involved in the ICT4D project. This is consistent with previous studies that have identified farmers, traders, government officers, and private vendors as the four main stakeholder groups (Meenakshi and Banerji, 2005; Molony, 2008). We briefly describe these stakeholders below.

Farmers

Farmers have various channels to sell their agricultural commodities. For example, they may choose to sell their produce to local traders, to various cooperative procurement organizations, or auction their produce at government-owned market yards. Yards are a preferred option for most farmers because it is mandatory to start the auction at a minimum support price (MSP) as recommended by the Indian Commission on Agricultural Costs and Prices (Meenakshi and Banerji, 2005). A farmer typically travels a long distance to reach the yard. Within the yard, the farmer piles up the commodity at an auction spot. He then waits—maybe for an hour or two—until the auctioneer comes to auction the commodity. A crowd of traders accompanies the auctioneer. Within minutes, traders make a judgment about the quality of the commodity and bid the auction price. After the auction is over, the farmer awaits the weighing of the commodity. After the weighing, if there are no conflicts on commodity quality, the trader makes the payment to the farmer.

Traders

Traders purchase the commodity and then sell it to industries. Although margins are small, they purchase tons of commodities, which yield considerable profits. They need documents to prove that all yard service charges have been paid. The trader can be seen moving between the yard office, banks, and their shops to procure these documents. Their houses are nearby and so lunch or tea breaks are natural.

Government officers

Government officers mediate the transactions between farmers and traders. For government officers, their main concern is to complete the auction and weighing of all the commodities as soon as possible. They administer the auctions, entering the auction data into registers, and resolve conflicts between the farmers and traders.

Private vendors

The private vendors were assigned the task of implementing the computerization project. One of their primary tasks was to convert manual data into a computerized format. The offices of the private vendors were stacked with booklets of auction and weight records and the operators could be seen entering these data into the system. Figure 1 presents the yard processes, lists the stakeholders in each of these, and lists the documents generated during the transactions. The various payments and charges are calculated based on the monetary value of the transactions.

Figure 1.

Yard transaction processes, stakeholders, and documents generated.

The ICT4D project

Despite all the various attempts to improve the social and economic situation of farmers, by 2000 little had changed. For example, although the government was supposedly in control of the yards, studies revealed that there were significant price discrepancies across these yards, and often the farmers were unable to realize the best available prices (Goyal, 2010). In addition, farmers faced various kinds of problems in the yards, such as cheating in commodity weighing and delays in payments. These problems continued to have an impact, not just on their economic well-being, but also on their socio-psychological well-being (Anupindi and Sivakumar, 2007).

It was against this background that the Indian Agricul-tural Marketing Board of Madhya Pradesh decided to initiate a pilot project to computerize the yards in 2000. It was planned that the data on the commodity rates of different yards would be made available at each yard so that farmers were aware of the best prevailing prices. Based on the learnings from a pilot project, the Board decided to launch a project on the computerization of its operations in 2003. The Board asked another government organization—The Madhya Pradesh Agency for Promotion of Information Technology (MAPIT)—to recommend an approach for implementing computerization of the yards. Following this, MAPIT undertook a detailed study of the yard operations and suggested that the yards be integrated using information technology. MAPIT also suggested that a build, own and operate model be used for implementation.

Private organizations were asked to submit their expression of interest in implementing the project. Over 25 companies responded, and 14 met the required criteria. After these companies made a presentation, eight companies were shortlisted. These eight companies then presented detailed proposals. Subsequently, a private vendor was engaged to implement the project. The vendor is a sizable national-level company headquartered in the Indian capital of New Delhi. The estimated project cost was over 800 million Indian rupees (approximately US$10 million).

As part of the project, all yard processes were supposed to be computerized. The data on auctions were captured using portable hand-held devices. After a prescribed number of transactions, the data from these devices were transferred to back-office computers. Figures 2 and 3 present photographs of the hand-held device and the register that included the names of the traders in a yard. During the auction, the names of the traders were entered using the register entries. VSAT technology was used for transferring the data to the central server, and the integrated data were re-sent to yards, regional, and head office of the Board, and to the website of the Board. The users of the system were the private vendor employees who would provide the required reports to the local government officers in the yard. Observe that the new names are all handwritten in the local language while the buttons of the hand-held device are all in the English language.

Figure 2.

Device used in the auction.

Figure 3.

In the initial phase of the project, the yards with high transaction volumes were computerized first. There are over 200 yards in the state, and 64 yards were included in the initial phase.

ICT4D project evaluation

An evaluation by the Department of Information Technology (DIT, 2008), Ministry of Information and Communication Technology in 2008 indicated that the project was a success (p. 92). However, this success did not last long. Just after 2 years, in 2010, conflicts had developed between the private vendor and the state government on various issues. The government blamed the private vendor employees for the problems, whereas the vendor employees blamed the government for lacking the appropriate organizational culture for computerization. The conflicts escalated so much that the state government decided to stop the payments to the private vendor. In response, the private vendor took its case to the state court. After the private vendor lost the case, the project was abandoned.

Data analysis

The historical and cultural context of the ICT4D project can be summarized as follows: a long history of exploitation of powerless farmers; increasing centralization of power to the state; laws passed by the state but not consistently implemented; manipulations of the auction process by traders; a corruption-infested bureaucratic culture; and perceptions about a lack of fiduciary responsibilities in the yards. The context of the field is summarized in Figure 4. Four different stakeholder groups interact with each in the yards, and each has its habitus and level in the power hierarchy.

Figure 4.

The field.

The major themes

Table 4 presents the major themes, along with example quotes illustrating the themes. We indicate how many references there were to each theme in our data set, as well as the number of sources for these data. However, there are yard-level variations in these themes. For example, in one yard, there was more discussion about the context of the exploitation of the farmers. In another yard, the discussions were centered on the exploitative practices of the traders. As can be seen, stakeholder practices and their habitus emerged as important themes.

Table 4.

Major themes.

Major themes	Sources	References	Example quotes
Stakeholder practices	19	188	Farmer (FA5): “We do not sell the commodities immediately, as we may get better rates in the future. For example, the rates of garlic are low presently, around 250 rupees a quintal, that is too little. So we will only sell a small portion now to meet the cash requirement, and will stock the bulk of the commodity later when the rates become better in the future.”
Trust issues among stakeholders	11	44	Private Partner (PV3): “We have recently received a directive that the entry slips should be issued from the computers only. Therefore, since December, we are issuing the slips only through computers, but the board has not allowed the same for auction slips. The board does not trust us, and so they have not allowed us to issue the auctions slips.”
Negative perceptions about other stakeholders	10	27	Private Partner (PV3): “Farmers are very cunning. Sometimes we consider that farmers are simple people. We assume that they are simpletons, but they are extremely shrewd.”
Habitus of government employee	8	72	Government Officer (GO2): “Any person is free here to behave the way he wants to . . . they can spit anywhere . . . at the yard, we keep spitting from our windows, but we do not dare to do such a thing in a five-star hotel.”
Habitus of farmers	14	98	Farmer (FA5): “At least I can read the electronic balances. Most of the farmers that come to the yard cannot even read the weights; imagine their extent of exploitation in the yards.”
Habitus of traders	9	22	Government Officer (GO3): “The most influential stakeholders are the traders. They influence the policies. They also make donations to political parties and hence are very influential.”
Major problems in yard field	8	34	Government Officer (GO2): “Frankly speaking, I am not a puritan. I am no sage. Even I do a little (accept bribes), this is only to meet my essential requirements.”
Major problems in IS implementation field	11	59	Private Partner (PV1): “. . . the operators are not present here because there is no power now. Also, the site in-charge has gone somewhere as there is no power.”
General perceptions about Indian society	2	3	Private Partner (PV1): “In India, if you have the money, you can do anything. It is the economics that matters, its money that speaks here.”

IS: information systems.

The power of the actors

Power in the field can be analyzed along the lines of actors and their symbolic practices (Arnholtz and Hammerslev, 2013). In the yard, four actors are a party to the trade transactions. These include farmers, traders, government officers, and private vendor employees. All four actors developed different practices to maintain their power positions in the yards.

The farmers resorted to political pressurizing if their interests were challenged. A private vendor employee described this as

The farmers often create problems in the working of the yard. They are heavily involved in politics and are too aggressive as they have the support of the yard president. The president of the yard committee is an elected president. He treats the yard as a launching pad for his political career. He comes here for his political manoeuvres. On the slightest provocation, he comes in support of the farmers. He sees conflicts as an opportunity to launch his political career. (PV3)

The traders are economically powerful actors. Past studies indicate that those who possess economic capital also control other forms of capital (Levina and Vaast, 2008: 323). Like the farmers, the traders also had their nexus with the politicians and directly funded political parties. The influential traders dictated the auction rates and maneuvered to make policy changes. One government officer mentioned that “the traders have political connections. For instance, a trader’s brother may be a member of the legislative assembly. Therefore, whatever auction-rate he quotes is the final quote. Other traders may not quote beyond the rate quoted by this trader” (GO3).

Apart from influencing the policies, the traders also influenced the day-to-day working of the yards by bribing the weight certificatory and the yard inspectors. By doing so, they were able to under-report their trade transactions. One farmer said,

The government officer there is already a bribed person. He is like a puppet in the hands of the traders. He sees which trolley has a good commodity and informs the traders. The traders then accumulate around that trolley and the others do not get good rates. (FA6)

A private vendor employee also had a similar opinion and commented, “the trader can pay the weight certificatory a few rupees. For example, he might certify that the commodity weighed was 20 quintals, while in actuality, it may be 35 quintals” (PV5).

Traders exploited farmers in other ways. For example, they often did not make precise payments to them; instead, they rounded it off to the nearest figure. In addition, in some yards, the commodity bags of the farmers were not returned to them. These bags are usually costly jute bags. Yet another problem was the weighing process. In the weighing process, often the farmers’ commodity would not be weighed correctly. One farmer described this as follows:

As per the rules, laborers have to weigh the commodity. They are required to lift the commodity from the vehicle and put it on the weighing machines. They are also required to remove it from the machine, but they do not do the entire work. We have to help them. Suppose we tell them that we do not need the laborers, they will weigh the commodity late in the evening, and we will be late. Also, look at the tricks of traders; in weighing, they consider the weight of 91.2 kilograms as equivalent to 90 kilograms. They reason that the weight of the bag is one kilogram. However, they still take 200 grams more. Moreover, the weight of the bag is not even one kilogram. So we have to exercise patience in all such situations else the payments will be delayed. (FA2)

The traders also exploited the farmers by not submitting their records on time. The traders are required by law to submit their returns periodically once every 15 days. However, rather than following this practice, they were submitting their records as per their convenience. This meant that payments to farmers were delayed and the implementation of the ICT4D project was negatively impacted. When asked why the records were not being submitted in a timely manner, and as required once in 15 days, a trader responded:

See, if you look at the root of the word Pakshik (the Hindi name for the document in which the traders submit their returns), it is in the Sanskrit word Paksha. A paksha is of fifteen days and refers to the waxing and waning cycles of the moon . . . (But since) the government has never implemented it, we have been submitting the records as per our convenience. (TR1)

This statement by the trader reveals that since the government had not enforced the 15-day cycle in the first place, there was no moral obligation on them to meet the deadline. They were able to submit the records whenever they liked simply because the government officers let them do so.

The government officers often used all the state machinery for exercising their power. The yard had its inspectors and guards who monitored the inter-state check posts. These people often extracted bribes from the transporters of the commodities. Apart from using the police force, the government officers had the authority to cancel the licenses of traders. If these measures were not sufficient, the government officers had the power to conduct tax raids and could ask for help from other government departments.

The private vendors were brought in to manage the project with the rationale that, being information technology experts and outsiders, they should be pivotal in providing a break from a contextual landscape characterized by corruption, exploitation, and unfair trade practices. However, rather than the private vendors being the harbingers of the change, they started mimicking the practices and bureaucratic behaviors of the government officers. In other words, they began to adapt to the pre-existing culture of the yards, rather than change the culture. They would often write letters to the government officers for trivial matters and were not keen to provide timely reports. This was described in detail by one government official who narrated an incident as follows:

I will give an example of the things that they (private vendor) do. There is a module in their software for the salary records of the employees. The authorities instructed us that we should help them in the computerization of the salary records. The private vendors wrote us a letter asking that we should provide them the required information related to employees and their salary records. This meant that we should provide them the data in a specific format and implied that we first do the data entry. After some time, we asked them, why they have not started with the data entry of the salary records? Their site in-charge replied that they had already written a letter to us asking for the required information. If we are asked to provide the data to them, obviously, we will need to do the data entry ourselves. So then, what is the work of the private vendor? We do not have enough staff for our own work, and they expect that we have the staff to enter the data of 300 employees? Therefore, we told them clearly that our responsibility is to provide you with the records and not the data. We will provide you the records, and you are supposed to feed these records into your system. (GO2)

As well as the four main actors, other stakeholders indirectly impact the yard workings. These are the seed processing industries, media houses, and commodity exporters. For example, one trader said “various senior politicians such as . . .the well-known newspaper group are soy traders or have processing plants of soybean. The member of the legislative assembly (MLA) who is also contesting elections has a soybean plant” (TR1). These exporters and industrial houses are very powerful and were also involved in unfair trade practices. For example, to avoid taxes, these actors would often not declare their purchases, which in turn motivated the traders to avoid the payment of fees. One trader described this as follows:

Some companies, for example, purchase soybean as an un-registered deal. Then they sell the subsequently processed products such as de-oiled cakes and oil also as un-registered deals. So then, what is the use of having these taxes? The traders who do the dealings for these companies also think of saving the service charges and the subsequent taxes. (TR1)

We can see, therefore, that in this particular field, the highest positions are occupied by a nexus of industrial houses and politicians who have significant stakes in the agricultural markets. The source of the power of this nexus is primarily economic. They are also instrumental in shaping the unfair practices of the traders. The government officers also occupy high positions in the field, but this is on account of their state endowed authority. The least powerful group is the farmers, and their only currency is their voting power, which is exercised just once every 3 years. Since the farmers have a long history of exploitation, exploitation has become a part of their habitus.

Discussion

The ICT4D project was intended to emancipate the farmers by enabling them to receive a fair price for their produce. However, we found that deeply entrenched symbolic practices, rooted in the culture, worked against this ICT4D project. Symbolic practices are related to symbolic capital, which is defined by Levina and Vaast (2008: 324) as “the power to name things and institute an order among things.” Symbolic practices serve the purpose of “misrecognition,” that is, a claim that there are not economic and material interests involved in a particular endeavor, but rather, that these endeavors serve a higher purpose (Swartz, 1996: 77). In our case, these symbolic practices were tied to and constitutive of power asymmetries and led to the abandonment of the ICT4D project.

One symbolic practice that reinforced these power asymmetries was the patience of the farmers in the yard. In Indian culture, patience is a supreme virtue, and the farmers’ use of the symbolic practice of patience enabled them to overcome their intense feelings of exploitation by the traders. Here, we see that symbolic practices might not only be used for public consumption but also for cognitive or psychological reasons as well. Past studies have indicated that patience and tolerance of the victims of corruption have only served to enhance corruption in India (Quah, 2008).

Another symbolic practice that reinforced these power asymmetries was the traders’ misrecognition of their unfair trade practices. The traders justified these practices by claiming they were simply following their own culture. Here again, we see a symbolic practice that justified their continued exploitation of farmers.

The government officers used symbolic practices to justify their authority. They legitimized their use of force by making claims that the other actors in the yards were too aggressive, and that their only option was to use force against these actors. This was mentioned by one government official who said, “You need to be a tough person here—one with a stick . . . you need to show your strength, and that keeps things in control. From time to time, we ought to show them our authority” (GO4). One of our informants, e-government officer, freely admitted that he accepted bribes, but justified this by saying he was not paid well, and the money was only used to “meet my essential requirements.”

According to Arnholtz and Hammerslev (2013: 53), a bureaucratic field depends on symbolic power. In our study, higher government authorities would send notices of misconduct to junior employees and might put adverse comments on their confidential reports. The endorsement of senior officers’ symbolic practices came in the form of sycophancy by the juniors who would willingly bear the field expenses of their seniors.

Seen from Bourdieu’s theory of practice, interactions between the field and the habitus can yield three types of situations (Swartz, 1997: 213–214). First, when there is complete synergy between the habitus and the field, the practices reproduce the existing social structures. Second, when there is some variation between the habitus and the field, adaptation results in social transformation. Finally, when there is a complete mismatch between the habitus and the field, the result is the resignation of the stakeholders. Our study confirms the third situation. The farmers were resigned to the fact that the field was tilted in favor of the traders and would remain so for the foreseeable future. According to Bourdieu, the adoption of different behavioral models is shaped by the cultural environment. For example, explaining the better adoption of the urban demeanors by women of rural areas in France, Bourdieu (Bourdieu, 2004: 588–589) suggests that emancipation is only one factor in their adoption, the other being the “structure of her cultural language” that emphasizes “to be attentive to external details.” In our case, the resignation of the farmers may not only be a practice that is exercised out of what Bourdieu calls “feel of the game,” but it may also be a cultural structuring of the farmers’ dispositions.

Bourdieu suggests that the consolidation of state power is achieved through the unification and standardization of the markets. Bourdieu specifically gives the example of the creation of a single set of unified laws as an indicator of the state’s endeavor to amass symbolic capital (Arnholtz and Hammerslev, 2013: 47).

In the case of the yards, the first step in the consolidation of state power was the creation of the agricultural marketing board through the MP Agricultural Marketing Act 1972. The next step was the unification and standardization of the markets. Before 2000, all the yards of the state had their bylaws. These laws were developed based on the localized trade practices of the yards, which were rooted in cultural and agro-climatic variations of the state. With variations in the processes, the yards could not be integrated using an information technology application. However, immediately before the implementation of the pilot IT project, the state replaced all the local yard committee bylaws with a uniform code for all the yards. Although the adoption of these bylaws was supposedly voluntary, one of the officers we interviewed commented, “though it was not mandatory to abide by this model, the senior officers asked us to get it approved from the yard committees within three days. So indirectly, we were told to adopt it and there was no option” (GO4). Unification and standardization of the laws and policies were essential before the implementation of the ICT4D project.

Once the IT project began to be implemented, the power dynamics and power asymmetries in the field began to change. In the previous manual system, the government officers and the traders had much discretion over transaction reporting. With computerization, both these groups lost their discretionary power. Moreover, the commodities that were sold by the traders to the export houses also got documented, and this had an impact on the unregistered trade transactions of the export houses. The government officers started losing their power, as it became more difficult to extract bribes from the traders.

Another problem emerged with the technically competent computer operators having their office right next to the government officers. Their vicinity contributed to a clash between them. Whereas the new technocrats were computer savvy, many of the government officers were not computer literate. Past studies on the use of technologies indicate that asymmetry about the knowledge of technology is a source of power. For example, the study by Barley (1986) indicates that radiologists acquired power over the technologists because they also knew what the technologists knew, but the reverse was not the case. In the yard, the government officers were facing the stark reality that they lacked computer skills. The computer operators knew what the government officers knew, but the government officers did not know what the computer operators knew. Such a situation reduced the power of the government officers as they had to rely on the computer operators for the generation of transaction reports.

Framework for studying habitus in IT research

Our study suggests that the metamorphosis of the habitus is a crucial consideration in ICT4D implementation. There are traits of habitus that are conducive to the implementation of information technology projects, and some traits which are not. These traits can be dispositional, affective, or cognitive. Our use of the term “traits” is consistent with past studies where traits are used to study organizational trust (Schoorman et al., 2007). In Table 5, we provide examples of each of these traits and the research studies that discuss these traits.

Table 5.

Examples of habitus traits.

Habitus traits	Examples	Research studies
Affective	Care and concern Respect Generosity Fairness and reciprocity Fiduciary responsibilities	Baba (1999); Foddy et al. (2009); Parra et al. (2011); Schoorman et al. (2007); Song (2009)
Instrumental	Ability Competence Skills	Mayer et al. (1995); Schoorman et al. (2007)
Dispositional	Cultural (language use, the propensity to trust, sense of time, etc.) Physical (attire, cleanliness, etc.) Communication	Igarashi et al. (2008); Parra et al. (2011); Yosano and Hayashi (2005)

Figure 5 provides a theoretical framework for studying the requirements of habitus. This framework might be useful in identifying the traits of habitus that are conducive to the implementation of ICT4D projects. The framework is comprised of the broad field of the domain. In our study, this domain is the domain of agricultural marketing. Within this field, different stakeholders are represented as stakeholders 1, 2, etc. Each stakeholder has traits of habitus that are affective, dispositional, and instrumental. In addition, within this broad field, there is a sub-field created because of the IT intervention. This IT field has its requirements for the habitus. The gap between the current habitus and that required by the IT field is related to the success of the IT project.

Figure 5.

Framework for studying habitus in ICT4D research.

Conclusion

ICT can be used to improve the social and economic situation in developing countries. In the project that we studied, the ICT4D project was an attempt to improve the social and economic situation of poor farmers in India. However, ICT4D projects face many challenges, and one of these relates to the power asymmetries in developing countries. Hence, our research question was, “how do power asymmetries enable or impede ICT4D projects?” We used critical in-depth case study research to answer this question. We found that, in this particular case, symbolic practices in the field worked against this ICT4D project. These symbolic practices, rooted in a particular culture, were tied to and constitutive of power asymmetries. Bourdieu’s theory of practice helped us to reveal the power asymmetries in this project, and particularly how these power asymmetries developed over time. We looked at the practices of actors, and in particular their symbolic practices, and the role of habitus in influencing these practices.

We believe our study makes the following contributions. First, we have shown how symbolic practices are tied to and constitutive of power asymmetries. These symbolic practices can be used to justify exploitation. On the one hand, the least powerful group—the farmers—overcame their feelings of exploitation by the practice of patience. On the other hand, the culture and habitus of the more influential stakeholders were considered socially acceptable and “proper.” It is no surprise, therefore, that the private vendors started mimicking the habitus and practices of the government officers.

Second, we have provided a framework that might help researchers studying the interactions between IT and the requirements of the habitus. Although the metamorphosis of the habitus is an important theoretical concept that is widely covered in past research (Betteney et al., 2018; Grillo, 2018; Rowlands, 2018), we have been able to apply this concept to an ICT4D project.

Third, our study contradicts previous IS research which suggests that private vendors are a critical success factor in the implementation of ICT4D projects (Best and Kumar, 2008). Our findings suggest that, rather than being the change agents that they were supposed to be, the private vendors ended up acquiring the bureaucratic culture and practices of the government officers. They internalized the styles of the government officers and started mimicking them. This mimicking not only negatively impacted the project, but it also reinforced the stereotyped behavior of the government officers. As Chartrand and Lakin (2013) describe, mimicked individuals tend to behave more in a stereotyped manner as they become aware about the mimicking behavior of the others. The net result was that the supposed agents of change succumbed to the pre-existing culture, and they themselves simply maintained the status quo. This observation suggests that deeply ingrained cultural practices are potent and difficult to change. Culture is resilient. We suggest this cultural phenomenon is very relevant to ICT4D projects in India and many other developing countries.

One limitation of our study is that we provide data from just one ICT4D project in one state of India. However, we believe that symbolic practices and power asymmetries are likely to be relevant in many ICT4D projects in developing countries.

One crucial area for further research relates to the exploitation of farmers based on their group identities. The literature on social exclusion suggests that exclusion from economic activities is one of the many forms of exclusions (Burchardt et al., 1999). Also, we know that social exclusion can be based on individual attributes as well as collective attributes such as caste, gender, or class (Brown, 1995). Stigma itself is a cause of social exclusion (Murray, 2007). To what extent such social exclusion influences the implementation of ICT4D projects is currently unknown.

Supplemental Material

sj-docx-1-jin-10.1177_0268396220964813 – Supplemental material for Symbolic practices and power asymmetries in ICT4D projects: The case of an Indian Agricultural Marketing Board

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-jin-10.1177_0268396220964813 for Symbolic practices and power asymmetries in ICT4D projects: The case of an Indian Agricultural Marketing Board by Ranjan Vaidya and Michael D Myers in Journal of Information Technology

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iDs

Ranjan Vaidya

Michael D Myers

Supplemental material

Supplemental material for this article is available online.

Author biographies

Ranjan Vaidya is a Lecturer at the Department of Business Information Systems, Faculty of Business, Economics and Law, Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand. He has a PhD in Information Systems from the University of Auckland. He has published journal papers and book chapters on information and communications technology for development. In the past, he worked at the Center for Electronic Governance, Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, and Indian Institute of Forest Management. His research interests include information systems implementation in developing countries, critical research in information systems, and impact assessment of information systems projects in developing countries.

Michael D Myers is professor of Information Systems at the University of Auckland Business School, New Zealand. His research interests are in the areas of qualitative research methods in information systems, digital transformation, and the social, organizational and cultural aspects of digital technologies. He won the Best Paper award (with Heinz Klein) for the most outstanding paper published in MIS Quarterly in 1999 and the Best Paper Awards in Journal of Strategic Information Systems in 2019 (with Simon Chanias and Thomas Hess).

Michael served as a Senior Editor of MIS Quarterly from 2001-2005 and as a Senior Editor of Information Systems Research from 2008-2010. He also served as President of the Association for Information Systems (AIS) in 2006-2007 and as Chair of International Federation of Information Processing (IFIP) Working Group 8.2 from 2006-2008. He currently serves as Editor-in-Chief of European Journal of Information Systems. Michael is a Fellow and LEO Award winner of AIS.

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