Cash contingencies: Transactional vulnerability in the Era of Digital Payments

This project will conduct an ethnographic analysis of how the digitalisation of retail payments has shaped our ability to pay in a time of crisis. Presently, the majority of payments in Denmark take place using digital solutions: increasingly ‘mobile wallet’ based solutions such as Apple and Google Pay. Most Danes express the expectation that cash can function as a contingency measure for
situations where electronic payments are disrupted, but this is only possible if cash functions properly during normal times. Consequently, the public and private actors responsible for transactional stability in Denmark are focusing on securing offline card-based transactions. Thus, the project addresses how this approach overlooks and thus depoliticises the growing dependence
on international technology companies. In doing so, the project examines how transactional vulnerability emerges from digitalisation.