Safaricom's Austere Labor Regime: The Expropriation and Subsumption of Affective Work

Chapter 6 explores Safaricom’s parsimonious labor regime, tracking how the knowledge, work, and strategies of M-Pesa agents have become firmly attached to the infrastructures of the corporation. I argue that the uncompensated affective social and material work of these people constitutes creative forms of action that enable infrastructural maintenance and expansion. While essentially free in Safaricom’s accounts, this work critically underwrites the firm’s success. This dynamic extends beyond Safaricom’s labor regime, capturing the majority of Kenya’s adult population. As everyday relations are commuted into service use and move from agents’ kiosks to Safaricom’s headquarters, they are refined into data that form the basis of new services and, ultimately, the consolidation of new markets and frontiers of accumulation.