Institute for Money, Technology & Financial Inclusion

Mobile phone adoption in sub-Saharan Africa has been one of the most rapid examples of technological diffusion in history. Mobile phone use compresses time and space and allows the planning and coordination of events and the spread of information (Ling & Stald, 2010). In Kenya, mobile communication has a frequent adjunct – use of mobile money transfer services which allow people to send money to friends and relatives. More than 80% of rural households in Kenya use the M-PESA service (CGAP, 2013). This project seeks to understand the use of mobile phones and mobile money that took place around a coming of age ceremony for adolescent males among the Bukusu ethnic group in Bungoma, Kenya in 2014. We will outline and describe the major findings so far as follows: 1) the ritual, 2) mobile phone communication in the ritual, 3) barrers to mobile phone use, 4) mobile money, and 5) gender and mobiles.