Cashlessness: A look at life on the margins of a digitalizing economy

In this episode of AnthroPod, guest producers Camilla Ida Ravnbøl and Marie Kolling explore the impact that the global trend towards digitalizing economies has on communities that are poor and highly cash dependent. The episode discusses Ravnbøl's research with Roma migrants, who live in homelessness in Denmark and who earn their cash income from the deposit on refundable bottles and cans. It takes the listener on a journey to Denmark’s largest music festival, the Roskilde Festival, which went cashless in 2017, on par with current developments in Denmark where more than 80 per cent of all transactions are already cashless. The Roma refund collectors were at first excluded from the economy at the festival, which provides a vital revenue for them and their families in Romania. But the festival is also trying to accommodate them, and this episode explains how. Ravnbøl and Kolling discuss the limitations that a cashless economy presents to cash-dependent groups as well as some of the unforeseen advantages.