Davide Casciano

Davide Casciano is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at KU Leuven and San Jose State University, where he currently leads the LAGOSTECH project. He was previously a Research Fellow at University College London (UCL), working on the ERC-funded project 'Anthropologies of Extortion' (Grant No. 884839). His research focuses on Nigeria, examining the intersections of religion, politics, and Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). He specifically explores Pentecostalism, armed struggles, and corruption, alongside the emergence of 'silicon places' and local AI ecosystems, analysing how these phenomena reshape social and moral economies in urban Africa.

My field setting

During my research at UCL, I conducted extensive fieldwork in Lagos, Nigeria, a megacity with an estimated population of over 21 million people. Lagos is a hyper-dynamic setting where long-standing cultural frameworks encounter global technological innovations. Vast inequalities provide the backdrop for profound social contradictions. In Lagos, extortion is not merely an exceptional encounter with state actors; it is woven into the fabric of daily life, particularly during periods of hardship. It resonates through the city's storytelling—amplified in the sermons of Pentecostal churches and debated in hushed tones in local bars.

My key research questions

My primary objective was to understand what is identified as extortion at an emic level and why. Given that 'corruption' is often an ambiguous, exogenously defined term, I investigated how local moral economies define these practices. This involved analysing both the physical acts of extortion and the shared imagery that produces collective meaning. Secondly, I explored how extortion translates into the digital realm: which specific online behaviours are condemned as immoral, and how do digital platforms reconfigure traditional social relationships? Ultimately, I sought to uncover the relational ethics underpinning these transactions in an increasingly digitised urban environment.

My research findings

A compelling case of digital extortion identified in Lagos is the rise of predatory loan apps. These platforms utilise digital tools to repackage coercive practices that predated their advent. They promise to bypass traditional 'loan sharks' through seemingly harmless interfaces. However, instead of mitigating risk, these apps amplify it; they weaponise the debtor's social capital by accessing contact lists and broadcasting 'shame messages' to the user's entire network. My research reveals a complex dialectic: whilst debtors face systemic harassment, they also develop 'counter-tactics', such as strategic defaulting, to exploit the apps' own vulnerabilities. Furthermore, I found that the debt collectors—the human agents behind the screens—are often trapped in precarious economic positions themselves. Within these global systems of exploitation, they are simultaneously perceived as 'extortionists' by the public and as 'exploited labour' by the corporations. Ultimately, in the Lagosian context, extortion is labelled as such only when it is perceived to serve purely egoistic ends, abusing moral or physical force to the detriment of social reciprocity.

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