Resumen

CRUCIFIX, Clément. Data in Circulation: Digital Hierarchies in Financialized Rural Mexico. Rev. colomb. antropol. [online]. 2025, vol.61, n.3, e2932.  Epub 01-Sep-2025. ISSN 0486-6525.  https://doi.org/10.22380/2539472x.2932.

As in other parts of the world, Mexican financial institutions are increasingly drawing on digital profiling technologies to decide who qualifies for credit. Based on a 15-month ethnographic study, this article analyzes the effects of a digital platform called the Credit Bureau (Buró de Crédito) in a rural area of Mexico. This platform centralizes data collected by financial institutions about their clients and assigns them a score intended to reflect their creditworthiness. While most studies have shown how such digital technologies reinforce socioeconomic inequalities, we aim to explore the capacity for resistance among local actors. Far from being static, we show how data are actively manipulated and circulated among people to circumvent the barriers imposed by the Credit Bureau. Through these practices, the article examines how social relations in this rural area-where most households rely on credit to survive-are increasingly shaped by individuals’ unequal ability to negotiate these digital technologies.

Palabras clave : financialization; digital technologies; rurality; inequality; resistance.

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