15
Jenna Burrell
jenna@ischool.berkeley.edu
Assistant Professor
School of Information
University of California–
Berkeley
102 South Hall
Berkeley, CA, 94720
USA
(510) 642-7584
Problematic Empowerment: West African Internet Scams as Strategic Misrepresentation BURRELL
Research Article
Problematic Empowerment:
West African Internet Scams as
Strategic Misrepresentation
Abstract
Internet scamming strategies associated with West Africa typically involve the
creation and deployment of ªctional narratives depicting political turmoil, cor-
ruption, violence, poverty, and personal tragedy set in a variety of African na-
tions. This article examines Internet scammers’ complicity in promoting these
creatively dramatic, yet stereotyped, representations of Africa and Africans.
Their approach exempliªes what de Certeau describes as a “tactic” where
scammers manipulate the space of representations produced by hegemonic
forces in the West to realize subversive ends. The attempts of Internet
scammers highlight the difªculties of creating self-representations that are
both authentic and persuasive. Marginalized communities face difªcult com-
promises in their efforts to be heard by those they perceive as powerful. This
remains the case, despite new mechanisms of communication, such as the
Internet, that make connecting (in a purely mechanical sense) much easier and
less expensive.
Keywords: Internet Scamming, Information Society, Ghana, Ethnography,
Technology, Socio-Economic Development
Internet fraud and scams, particularly the “419” scams associated with
the West Africa region, are activities that raise some important new ques-
tions about the potential impact of improved connectivity on a global so-
cial order. A causal relationship between the capabilities of computing and
networking technologies and certain beneªcial socio-economic effects is
frequently asserted in the documents produced by development institu-
tions and in the political discourse of many national governments. The re-
cent UN-sponsored World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) that
brought together over 11,000 participants from 176 countries is evidence
of a growing conviction in this theme. The WSIS process ªrmly positioned
the “information society” as one of the central development themes of
our time, alongside other World Summit topics, including gender equality,
environmental sustainability, and human rights. Yet the emergence of
Internet scamming destabilizes an assumed relationship between technol-
ogy and socio-economic progress. In an eight-month period of ethno-
graphic ªeldwork in Accra, Ghana, I was able to observe the activities
taking place at Internet cafés and conduct in-depth interviews with
75 Internet café users, operators, and owners, many of whom addressed
the issue of Internet fraud with concern and deep insight. Among these
Internet users were a few who admitted to attempting scams.
The way Internet users in Accra spoke about fraud and scams served
© The MIT Press 2008. Published under Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial-NoDerivativeWorks Unported 3.0 license. All rights
not granted thereunder to the public are reserved to the publisher and may not be exercised without its express written permission.
Volume 4, Number 4, Fall/Winter 2008, 15–30

not only as a commentary on the technology, but
also reºected how citizens of this developing nation
perceived their position in the global economy.
These Internet users described a model of the world
where vast accumulations of wealth were located
primarily in the West. They attributed the failure of
their society to develop, not to a lack of information
or ideas, nor to inadequate farming practices or
insufªcient healthcare, but to a lack of access to this
wealth. Gaining access required establishing contact
and persuading foreign gatekeepers to form part-
nerships. This perceived economic order led directly
to the trends in Internet use that predominated in
Internet cafés in Accra—namely, the search for for-
eign pen pals, romantic involvements, advisors, phi-
lanthropists, and business partners. Scamming was a
related attempt to make contact with these gate-
keepers to wealth sharing the same underlying the-
ory about the global order and the same essential
practice. However, scams were a more cynical and
disingenuous reworking of what, in most cases,
were well-meaning attempts to build social capital.
It should be emphatically noted that scamming is
not the primary motive behind Internet café use in
Accra. Its worth as a subject of study centers on the
debate it provokes among scammers, non-
scammers, and publics inside and outside of Ghana,
and on certain important, contested issues in Gha-
naian society and in Ghana’s relationship to the
West. The commentary provided by Internet users in
Accra raises many questions about the value of con-
nectivity: What are the consequences when one lo-
cale realizes improved connections to many others?;
What are the effects of new ºows of data moving
into and out of this locale (and of what exactly is
this data composed)?; and What is the impact when
marginalized groups are provided with new capabili-
ties for authoring and distributing information? I will
be addressing these questions from a sociological
perspective, drawing on theories from both media
and post-colonial studies. These approaches are cen-
trally concerned with issues of representation and
language, particularly how the categories and narra-
tives people produce in the media and in everyday
conversations, both online and ofºine, deªne a so-
cial world that has consequences for their own ac-
tivities and the activities of others. From this
perspective, the Internet is a space where opinions
are formed, expressed, and cemented about gender,
race, and nationality. Taking this particular theoreti-
cal approach to examine the experiences of Internet
users in Accra is meant to develop a more nuanced
picture of what it means to be connected, while
moving away from notions of a cyberculture com-
posed of the disembodied minds of cyber-citizens,
or of the Internet as a networked database where
neutral and impersonal information circulates, freed
from any social context. Instead, the information
produced online is often heavily worked through by
users (in Ghana and the West) to reºect a self-
afªrming version of a global moral order that may
run counter to ideals of improved cross-cultural
understanding.
Methodology
The ªndings of this research emerged out of a
methodological approach that brought together
multiple sources of data. Not surprisingly, it proved
difªcult to recruit, hold open and direct conversa-
tions with Internet scammers. Several Internet users
I approached (not just scammers) expressed suspi-
cion that I was covertly working for the American
government and merely posing as a graduate stu-
dent and researcher. To help facilitate initial intro-
ductions, a Ghanaian male research assistant in his
late 20s sought out contact with Internet scammers.
He explained the purpose of the research and the
possibility that the information they provided could
be published, assured the anonymity of all inter-
viewees, and gained permission for further contact.
This analysis of scamming draws from a broader
study of Internet café use. Among the Internet café
users, operators, and owners I interviewed most had
no known involvement with these activities, but,
nonetheless, contributed information in their inter-
views about what they had witnessed or heard
about Internet scamming. These contributions al-
most always emerged without prompting (explicit
questions about scamming were not part of the in-
terview guide), suggesting the signiªcance of these
activities to Internet users. Analysis of the collected
data was accomplished through a comprehensive
coding of ªeld notes and interview transcripts for
references to scams, fraud, and any other illegal
practices related to the Internet.
In addition, a small number of Internet users who
admitted to attempting online scam or fraud activi-
ties (eight in total) provided some information about
their activities to a research assistant. Half consented
to and were interviewed by me at a later date. I de-
veloped an ongoing connection with two of these
16 Information Technologies and International Development
PROBLEMATIC EMPOWERMENT: WEST AFRICAN INTERNET SCAMS AS STRATEGIC MISREPRESENTATION

scammers whom I visited on multiple occasions in
various settings. One allowed me to observe and
discuss scam strategies with him in chat rooms at an
Internet café. The other consented to an interview
with his family. A local traditional/Muslim healer was
also interviewed about his knowledge of the activi-
ties of Internet scammers who made up a portion of
his clientele. None of the individuals who provided
the information included in this article were inter-
viewed covertly. Every effort was made to clearly
and accurately describe the nature of the research
and possible outcomes (including publication) and
to provide them an opportunity to decline participa-
tion. Among those interviewed, there was no credi-
ble evidence that any of their scamming activities
had resulted in ªnancial gain. Yet, overall, there is
evidence that these scamming strategies can be suc-
cessful. The most recent report of the U.S.-based
Internet Crime Complaint Center showed that Nige-
rian e-mail fraud resulted in an average (median)
loss suffered by victims of $5,100. This is a much
higher average loss than any other category of
Internet crime. In total Nigerian e-mail fraud gener-
ated $3.3 million in reported losses over the course
of one year in the United States (IC3, 2006). The in-
effectiveness of the scammers who were inter-
viewed indicates that, outside of high-proªle cases,
there is also a (possibly much larger) body of less
skillful, free agent scammers trying these strategies
on their own, generally without much success.
Additional data gathered and analyzed included
publicly available articles about scamming distrib-
uted through the local mass media—the main local
newspaper, the Daily Graphic, and the online news
source ghanaweb.com—and a recording of a broad-
cast radio program on Internet scamming from a lo-
cal radio station in Accra. Interviews with ordinary
Internet users who were not involved in scams and
articles in the local mass media provided a sense of
the social climate surrounding the scamming activi-
ties that took place in Accra, as well as perceptions
of their wider impact on individuals and society in
Ghana.
Examples of scam e-mails were also collected
from multiple sources—one was handed to me in
an Internet café in Accra, eight were sent (by
strangers) to my personal e-mail address, and many
others were collected from two Internet resources:
www.scamorama.com and www.419eater.com.
Broadcast media responses in the West to scam
strategies were gathered from publicly accessible on-
line sources, including abcnews.com, bbcnews
.co.uk, and the online magazine slate.com. The de-
cision to collect data from a variety of sources pro-
viding a multitude of perspectives adheres to recent
theoretical directions in media studies that argue for
the complexity and ºexibility of media reception and
the interpretative capabilities of audiences (Barber,
1997; Ginsburg et al., 2002; Larkin, 2004; Newell,
2000; Silverstone, 1994). This scholarly work also
underlines the inºuence of material aspects of re-
ception, such as the space of viewing (i.e., cinema
or living room) and the reception technology (i.e.,
television or computer screen).
The Evolution of West African
Internet Scams
This money I want to invest into any business of
your choice in your country was acquired through
the Construction Of the newly completed Abuja
National Stadium which was used for the just
concluded All African Games ( COJA ) Abuja
2003. During the time the contract was to be
awarded to a foreign ! contractor, I used my posi-
tion and ofªce then as the Parmenent Secetary
[sic] to the Senate President to over invoice the
sum of US$15.5M from the main contract sum.
(personal e-mail received August 15, 2006)
Among Internet scamming strategies associated
with the West Africa region, Nigerian 419 e-mails
1
are the most widely known and the most wide-
spread. In these e-mails, the author often claims to
be a wealthy former member of the corrupt Nige-
rian government needing to quickly transfer money
out of the country. The extraordinary circumstances
are explained by the death (often by plane or car
crash, or murder by political opponents) of a family
member or business contact. The e-mail recipient is
asked to provide assistance, often by making their
bank account available for the money transfer. As a
reward, the recipient is promised a hefty percentage
of the gain, often amounting to several million dol-
lars. Victims are asked to pay upfront fees for bribes
or other costs, then this money disappears. There
Volume 4, Number 4, Fall/Winter 2008 17
BURRELL
1. 419 is commonly referred to as the Nigerian police code for fraud. They are alternately called Advance Fee Fraud, re-
ferring to the “fees” that are collected in “advance” of the big money transfer payoff promised by scammers to their
victims.

pal” is used to refer to a very wide range of rela-
tionships, including same-age peers, boyfriends, girl-
friends, older patrons, mentors, sponsors, and
business partners. Some young people valued these
relationships for the enlightening conversation and
the creation of social bonds. Others valued them pri-
marily as strategic afªliations for realizing material
gain. Scams derived from pen pal exchanges reºect
how scammers drew on established patterns of
communication as a resource for modeling their
strategies for economic gain.
Scamming Practices in the Context
of Internet Use and Everyday Life
To distinguish the Internet activities that were con-
sidered to be scams from those that were not re-
quires a broader discussion of Internet use in Accra.
What Ghanaian Internet users explicitly identiªed as
scams constituted only one form of Internet use that
made use of knowing misrepresentations. The
Internet was widely used to contact people abroad
to make requests for assistance with ªnances or mi-
gration. These contacts abroad could be foreigners
or they could be family or friends from Ghana who
had migrated. To represent oneself favorably and
sympathetically online was the goal. From speaking
with Ghanaians living abroad, I learned that re-
quests from one’s family in Ghana were often
treated with skepticism as these requests could also
involve misrepresentations. Samuel, a Ghanaian
working as a social worker in the U.S., was inter-
viewed as part of a related study on technology use
among Ghanaian transnationals (Burrell & Anderson,
2008). He noted, “They will even tell you stories
about ‘well I’m not feeling well the doctor says this’
it’s medical, so you send money to them. Then they
just go and spend the money...”Toacertain ex-
tent, this problem arose from a misunderstanding
between those abroad and those in Ghana who be-
lieved the former (family or foreigners) to be stingy
(or in the case of some foreigners, racist) and who
viewed themselves as legitimately in need of the
money. As Samuel added, “the concern has always
been like every other family...they always think
that you are making too much money, you’re here,
so you have to send them money.” This motive
for misrepresentation (stinginess, greed, the failure
of the wealthy to redistribute wealth) is a theme
that carries through to other forms of Internet
use, including Internet crimes. It also illustrates a
main theme of this article—that strategies of self-
presentation online among Ghanaians were shaped
in relation to perceptions of an audience living out-
side of the country, whether Westerners or family
living abroad. Even in ordinary non-criminal social in-
teractions, the presented self was ºexibly formed to
reºect this audience, rather than serving to simply
report current conditions.
Beyond cases of what would be considered so-
cially acceptable misrepresentation for ªnancial gain,
there were, in contrast, examples of legitimate gains
made over the Internet that were portrayed as
transgressive. For example, a few young men de-
scribed how, as schoolboys, they used to go to the
café in groups and visit Web sites to request ship-
ments of CDs of computer gambling games or free
Bibles. Among friends, they would compete to see
who could get the most copies. The magic of “gain-
ing something for nothing” through the Internet
provided a thrill. At the same time, this behavior
was criticized in the same way many criticized
Internet crime. One of these former schoolboys,
Kwaku, described the motive for CD and book col-
lecting as “you just want to be greedy, that is the
reason...”Some of this sense of greed or criminal-
ity related to different perceptions of value. The level
of general poverty in Accra is such that access to
books and papers are fairly limited. In Accra, to give
someone your business card is an act treated with
reverence and the card considered a material gift.
Business cards are referred to as “complimentary”
cards, highlighting its characterization as a gift. Sim-
ilarly, from time to time, people I encountered in
Accra presented creased and stained “letterhead”
from an organization as proof of their afªliation, but
did not have the resources to provide me with a
copy. Some of this reverence for paper documents
relates to the power of afªliation and having con-
tacts, but some of it is also about what producers in
the north see as valueless paper being interpreted as
valuable by consumers in the south.
Local distinctions between need and greed ex-
plain how, among similar activities, some could be
interpreted as scams and others as socially accept-
able. The nature of the social tie and the level of ob-
ligation between giver and receiver was another
factor. Financial gains made through established ties
of obligation, where some form of misrepresenta-
tion is employed (i.e., a non-existent illness, money
Volume 4, Number 4, Fall/Winter 2008 19
BURRELL

sent for a school book and used for something else),
was a gray area. This rationale of need was also
used by Internet scammers and fraudsters to justify
their activities. On the issue of obligation, a young
woman who had assisted a male friend in an
Internet scam defended her role by asserting that it
was her duty to help a friend whenever asked. This
was true, she implied, despite any personal reserva-
tions she might have about the activity. One reason
gender-switching Internet scams were deªned as
deviant was that the obligation between the male
scammer and foreign boyfriend was illegitimate by
virtue of the scammer’s misrepresented gender. Obli-
gation and need were justiªcations used to distin-
guish between what Internet users deªned as
Internet crime/deviance and ordinary or harmless
misrepresentation. Internet users often context-
ualized their stories about Internet crime using this
rationale of need versus greed, providing an instant
register of their position as sympathizer or critic of
these activities.
Observation of scamming practices in Internet
cafés also provides some context for these activities
in the broader scheme of Internet café use. From
time to time, I witnessed individuals sitting at a
computer in the café with a list of credit card num-
bers (sometimes handwritten) that they would dili-
gently type, one by one, on e-commerce sites in an
attempt to purchase goods they intended to either
keep as personal property or resell in Ghana. On oc-
casion, scammers working in small groups could be
observed clustered around a screen collaborating on
chat strategies, although the logic of such collabora-
tion was debated in interviews. Several scammers
suggested that scams were carried out primarily by
criminal “clans,” some of them even linked into
transnational networks, although they themselves
worked alone. One interviewee suggested that the
most successful scammers worked entirely on their
own due to concerns about getting caught and the
trustworthiness of partners. While observing
scammers working in chat rooms, I found that their
online conversations were, in many ways, similar to
those of non-scamming Internet users in Accra. Both
involved a lot of time-consuming small talk, sexual
innuendo, and requests for material assistance. One
major conclusion to draw from these observations
was that typical scamming attempts took place over
long periods of time and rarely yielded any ªnancial
gain. None of the scammers I observed or encoun-
tered were making use of spam software as is pre-
sumably the case with the very successful high-level
419 scammers. Instead they were laboriously writing
to scam targets one by one. Given these observa-
tions, it is not accurate to categorize these activities
as arising out of a desire to “gain something for
nothing.” Instead, they appear to be informal at-
tempts to realize personal gain by individuals who
perceive legitimate channels of opportunity as being
closed to them. This perspective was expressed
among young people (not only Internet scammers)
such as Stephen, an unemployed 21-year-old, who
asserted that in Ghana, “You can only get a job
when you have a relative in that job. He will just link
you to the money jobs. But if you don’t know any-
body there, just forget it, you’re not getting any jobs
. . . you sell on the roadside.” Some scammers con-
sequently described their efforts as a launching pad
to a legitimate, non-deviant lifestyle. They planned
to use the proceeds of their scams, for example, to
pay for IT training courses, to start a business im-
porting Western goods for resale, or to pay for a
trip abroad. Scamming was never described in inter-
views as a permanent arrangement or a way to
avoid a conventional career.
The personal histories of two scammers will fur-
ther illuminate the context of scamming activities
within everyday livelihood strategies. Gabby and
Kwaku are young men in their 20s, like all of the
scammers I interviewed. Gabby pointed out how his
scamming interests were formulated through peer
relationships. He described witnessing and hearing
about scams conducted by friends. He noted, “It
was the inºuence of my friends...myfriends used
to take me there and sometimes I would accompany
them to the banks for the money.” Gabby came
from a troubled family. His mother had died when
he was young, his father had left, and he was es-
tranged from his uncle, who was the only family
member left to assume the role of his guardian. His
uncle, at one point, had Gabby thrown in jail for
stealing some stereo equipment from his home.
Both Gabby and Kwaku had completed senior sec-
ondary school, were ºuent in English, and more
than capable of conducting online text-based con-
versations. Kwaku’s family—his father, mother, and
two sisters, one of whom was away at school—
lived together, without suffering from the interper-
sonal strife that Gabby faced with his uncle. Yet, in
an interview with Kwaku’s father, a forklift operator
20 Information Technologies and International Development
PROBLEMATIC EMPOWERMENT: WEST AFRICAN INTERNET SCAMS AS STRATEGIC MISREPRESENTATION

at Tema Port, he made it clear that their living condi-
tions were poor. The small room he rented for the
family was “very hot and me like this I should have
moved from this place, but I don’t have the money
to do that so I have to squeeze myself over here
with my children and my wife.” The water taps
were not functioning and there were problems with
property theft, ªre, and road infrastructure (or lack
thereof) that prevented municipal services from
reaching them. Gabby’s ªnancial situation, although
insecure, was more promising than Kwaku’s. When
Gabby was on good terms with his uncle, an
afºuent University-educated journalist, he was able
to live in a spacious, self-contained home and
seemed to have access to a source of funding that
allowed him to spend nearly all his time at the
Internet café. Young men, like Gabby and Kwaku,
came to scamming through a growing lack of faith
in legitimate opportunities for personal develop-
ment, through peer inºuence and emulation, and
through perceptions of limitless wealth in the West.
While relatively well-educated, given the depriva-
tions and insecurities they suffered, it would be
difªcult to categorize them as part of an “elite”
segment of Ghanaian society.
Manipulating Representations of
Africa for a Foreign Audience
The previous section has given some indication as to
how scammers end up scamming, drawing upon
historical continuities and contextual conditions. This
section will clarify the reasoning scammers use to
justify their activities. Additionally, it will examine
why they do it in this particular way, drawing on
narratives of corrupt governments, shady business
deals, religious piety, illness, war, untimely accidents,
and natural disasters. Goffman’s theories about how
people perform for each other in social situations
are applicable when speaking about Internet crime
as a drama of persuasion (Goffman, 1971). Individ-
uals are able to control the impression they make on
others through verbal and non-verbal cues. Likewise,
Internet scammers in Accra were heavily invested in
“impression management” as their success entirely
depended on their ability to dupe foreigners by car-
rying out a believable self-representation. The
Internet provided a rather unique “front stage”
that, through digital mediation, provided opportuni-
ties for dramatic manipulations of identity. Non-
verbal cues that were usually impossible to control,
such as race, gender, and geographic location, were
easier to alter in mediated online environments than
in face-to-face interaction. Scammers brought a vari-
ety of disparate elements together to construct
these identities, including female friends and family,
digital photos of black models, Web sites with “love
quotes,” fake ID cards, webcams, etc. Scammers
stepped out of themselves to imagine the foreigner’s
“gaze” and sought to meet the expectations of that
“gaze” in a way that gave them a strategic advan-
tage.
The Internet provided an open-ended, ºexible
opportunity to invent a ªctional identity, but to do
so convincingly, scammers drew on their real-world
perceptions of the West. In terms of the foreign
“gaze,” Ghanaians saw themselves as marginalized
in the world; they were aware of the way the for-
eign media typically represent Africa as homogen-
ously war-torn, poverty stricken, and chaotic. Ebron
describes the persistence of this style of reporting
about and representing Africa as a legacy of colo-
nialism and one of the ways that “Western adminis-
trative regimes” justify dependency relations with
African nations (Ebron, 2002, 3). This representation
was a source of frustration for many Ghanaians who
felt these characterizations were simply inaccurate.
The country’s status as a Heavily Indebted Poor
Country (HIPC)
3
is also a source of shame and was
sometimes publicly lamented in church services and
in the local media. To be deemed heavily indebted
and poor and, therefore, in need of special foreign
aid and debt relief was a threat to many Ghanaians’
sense of agency and dignity. This sensitivity about
foreign representation meant that both friends and
strangers, at times, tried to dissuade me from taking
photos of scenes that might suggest poverty. They
demonstrated an awareness of the Orientalist ten-
dencies of foreigners to depict their society as pas-
sive, poor, and strange through imagery (Said,
1978). This was one way in which Ghanaians were
able to effect control over their representation to
the outside world, but, otherwise, they had few
Volume 4, Number 4, Fall/Winter 2008 21
BURRELL
3. Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) is a World Bank initiative that has approved 18 countries, including Ghana,
for debt relief.

other options for challenging the foreign representa-
tions that were imposed on them.
Foreigners’ representations of Africa in chat room
conversations often mirrored images from the West-
ern media. Ghanaian Internet users found that
many foreigners were quite ignorant about Ghana,
and about Africa more generally. Some Ghanaians
encountered foreigners online who abruptly aban-
doned chat conversations after they identiªed them-
selves as African, whereas others expressed fear over
visiting Africa due to perceptions of widespread vio-
lence or disease. Through exposure to media repre-
sentations and through interactions with foreigners
online and in person, Ghanaians confronted how
they were characterized by Westerners as the
Other—the socially-constructed portrait built by one
group about another, shaped primarily by anxiety
and the threat of difference. This portrait is often
constructed in terms of what the viewer has that
the viewed lacks. The Other is deªned by absence
and is always a warped portrait, emerging as it does
out of the desire for self-afªrmation. Media and on-
line sources have played a role in delivering images
of the Other in print, broadcast, and digital forms
(Morley & Robins, 1995; Nakamura, 2002). While
much attention has been paid to the way Africans
have historically been studied and represented by
white Westerners, the “white man” has also been
the subject of an ongoing examination by Africans
(Nyamnjoh & Page, 2002). Internet scammers simi-
larly constructed Westerners as Other in developing
their online personas, but using a form of “double
consciousness,” a term W. E. B Du Bois deªnes as
“this sense of always looking at one’s self through
the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the
tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt
and pity” (Du Bois, 2003 [1903], 9). Westerners are
described in terms of what they have that Africans
lack. The Western Other is, therefore, an inversion
of the African Other. As Africans are typiªed in the
West by poverty-stricken famine victims on televi-
sion, Westerners are typiªed by wealthy celebrities.
4
Whereas Africans are needy, Westerners are greedy.
This mutually agreed upon asymmetry is exagger-
ated into mutual misunderstanding.
Young Internet scammers believed these foreign
perceptions of Africa could be usefully manipulated,
perhaps in a way that even served as subversive jus-
tice. In this way, marginalization brought on by the
perception of outsiders could be reinterpreted to de-
velop a more positive self-representation and could
be used pragmatically as a tool for extracting
money. As young Ghanaians imagined themselves as
Other, they found a limited set of archetypal identi-
ties that would be treated as believable and sympa-
thetic by foreigners. They believed that their desire
for the funds needed to start a legitimate business,
or to go to an IT school, were not persuasive
enough to grab the attention of a foreign contact.
Or as Gabby, an unemployed scammer, notes, “. . .
if I put my real picture or if I tell you this...my
family background, my status, my ªnancial back-
ground you will not even want to talk to me.”
Scammers came to understand the foreign “gaze”
as one that expected an asymmetry. It expected and
responded to them as needy, but not as potential
partners. It expected medical bills, not IT schools. In
response, scammers created alternate identities that
catered to the perceived prejudices of their foreign
chat partners. They performed as a needy African
orphan, as an attractive African woman seeking res-
cue, as a participant in or victim of a corrupt African
government regime, or as a God-fearing Christian
pastor seeking funds to help improve his impover-
ished community. The performance of neediness
maintains continuity with the history of foreign in-
volvement in Ghana, conforming to established rela-
tionships of patronage or dependency that have
taken on a multitude of forms, from missionary
work through colonialism and into the contempo-
rary age of development work.
For example, one scammer wrote a letter, using
the persona of an elderly, white, American woman
to appeal on his behalf to an American televan-
gelist:
Dear Paul Crouch‘Iamsending this to ya beg-
ging ya to help this man of God in Ghana Africa ‘
I found him on the Net and he adopted me as his
mom but w/ tears in my eyes I am an elderly
22 Information Technologies and International Development
PROBLEMATIC EMPOWERMENT: WEST AFRICAN INTERNET SCAMS AS STRATEGIC MISREPRESENTATION
4. Rumors circulated among Internet users that wealthy people and celebrities, including Oprah Winfrey and Michael
Owens, the football player for Liverpool, were often the successful targets of credit card scams. Part of the effect of
these types of rumors was to reduce the sense of immorality about the activity. For example, as one young, unsuccess-
ful scammer rationalized, “sometimes the people whose credit cards are being used are these rich people...they
don’t really notice it, the money is reduced.”

woman on s security and have no means to do
what’s necessary for him...hedo0es not have
food/shelter amnd money and sleeps at times at
the bus station and park as he is” black” and no
one gives him aid and cannot get a job of this
reason...[Iamawhite woman from the south]
God blass ya !! [name and address omitted]
5
In this strategy of persuasion, he constructed a
third-person narrator to be a sympathetic, but unbi-
ased, advocate. This narrator, by virtue of being the
same religion, nationality, and race as the televan-
gelist, was thought to be a more persuasive ªgure.
This reºected the young man’s perception that sym-
pathy was difªcult to generate across great social
differences. The letter makes reference to its author
having difªculty getting a job in Ghana, because he
is “black” and being forced to sleep in a park, gen-
erating images that are coherent with an African
diasporic identity—the plight of marginalized minor-
ity immigrant groups in industrialized countries. This
scammer illustrated an extensive awareness of not
only Western media representations of Africa but
also representations of the African Diaspora.
The manipulation of foreign stereotypes for
ªnancial gain was a strategy that preceded the
Internet. Gabby started exploiting these stereotypes
when he was still in secondary school. Before he
used the Internet, he tried to send letters to foreign
pen pals, appealing for money. He noted, “if I have
the contact address of these pen pals I will write to
them and if they start corresponding I will start ask-
ing money. My parents are dead, please help me,
I’m in Africa, you know the situation in Africa. You
see Africa is never printed as it is out of the conti-
nent Africa...ifyouarenotinAfrica all the pic-
tures you see in Africa are diseases....These nice,
nice places will not be broadcasted....”Inhiscom-
ments, Gabby implicated both foreign print and
broadcast media as the culprits for such misrepre-
sentations. Since childhood, he had an awareness of
this tendency in the foreign media.
Yaw, another interviewee, claimed to be in touch
with a number of very successful scammers operat-
ing out of a large, centrally located Internet café. He
told stories that cast Westerners in a darker light,
not as ignorant people susceptible to the inºuence
of their biased media, but as blatantly prejudiced
and as actively depriving Ghanaians and other Afri-
cans of a better existence and, therefore, deserving
of the Internet crimes committed against them. Yaw
noted that his friends didn’t feel bad about scam-
ming because, as he ambiguously noted, “they say
the white man is the biggest thief.” This rationaliza-
tion made scamming activities an expression of vigi-
lante justice rather than truly a crime. Yaw also
pointed to feelings of resentment over the harsh re-
strictions on migration that prevent young Ghana-
ians from seeking better opportunities overseas,
noting that “because they can’t go to America they
will take money from Americans.” He added that
Westerners perceive Africans as not clever and capa-
ble enough to carry out a scam. In a satisfying sense
of revenge against this racism, it is precisely by this
prejudice that Westerners are taken advantage of in
the ideal scam. Scammers and their sympathizers
imagine the moment when racist scam victims real-
ize they have been outwitted by individuals they had
thought to be inferior.
Internet scammers felt compelled to work within
a set of false perceptions and distorted archetypes
that they viewed as alien and even openly resented.
In this way, they were operating with what de
Certeau deªnes as a “tactic.” A tactic is the strate-
gic work done by “the weak” who lack a space of
their own from which to relate to what is external.
The lack of space is determined when external
forces refuse to recognize that position as they
deªne it for themselves. This forces “the weak” to
relocate. A tactic “insinuates itself into the other’s
place” (de Certeau, 1984, xix). Internet scammers
were doing this in both a material and discursive
space. As de Certeau notes, “the weak must contin-
ually turn to their own ends forces alien to them”
(de Certeau, 1984, xix). Through “tactics,” Internet
fraudsters and scammers sought to subvert and
transcend their disadvantaged position within soci-
ety and the world, using the very representations of
Africa deªned apart from and against them by he-
gemonic forces.
It should be noted that few Internet users shared
the degree of cynicism expressed by Internet
scammers about the impossibility of legitimate ac-
Volume 4, Number 4, Fall/Winter 2008 23
BURRELL
5. The original version of this letter was written in all caps, which I ªnd both hard to read and disruptive of an even-
handed assessment of the content of the letter. Therefore, it is noted here, but has been changed in the body of the
article.

cess to the global economy via Internet use. Many
believed that it was possible to participate in and
gain from socially acceptable forms of online busi-
ness. However, they also expressed a sense of persis-
tent disadvantage in their online activities that was
consistent with the scammer’s perspective. For ex-
ample, Isaac, a 26-year-old Internet café operator, in
his attempts to ªnd a business partner online, was
repeatedly told he would need to come up with
some ªnancial capital of his own to invest. As he
noted:
. . . I’m spending my time [on the Internet] trying
to search for business partners. And a lot of peo-
ple say I have the brains, I have the ideas, I have
the courage, but sorry we can’t do business, I’m
supposed to bring some money so we start a joint
venture. I don’t have monies, that’s one drawback
ofthis...
Similarly, Sandra, formerly a bilingual secretary,
had used the Internet to get all the information and
clients she needed to start a proªtable label-making
business, but despite her solid business plan, she
had several times been denied a bank loan to buy a
$15,000 label-making machine. Frank, a student at
a well-regarded local IT school, spent hours and
hours on the Internet trying to sell traditional glass
beads to people via e-mail, but struggled with gain-
ing trust from his customers. There was general
agreement among Internet users like Isaac, Sandra,
and Frank that the lack of start-up capital, as well as
their position as latecomers from marginalized socie-
ties, made gaining some form of access to the
global economy no straightforward matter and only
marginally easier with access to the Internet; it
would require struggle and compromise. It was
among Internet scammers that those compromises
took on the shape of more extreme forms of devi-
ance and misrepresentation.
Internet users in Accra, who, by and large, used
the Internet for legitimate and legal purposes, often
harshly condemned the activities of scammers as
greedy or lazy. They were concerned with the effect
of scamming on Ghana’s national reputation. They
also expressed a more immediate fear over falling
victim themselves. In several interviews, young peo-
ple described losing money in small or substantial
amounts, often in the pursuit of opportunities to go
abroad. Sometimes the Internet played a role in
these scams. For example, Charles, a senior second-
ary school student, described how he had learned
about a school in Sweden from an ad in a phone
booth. He and a friend sent an e-mail to request
more information. In the course of pursuing this op-
portunity to go abroad, his friend gave 1 million
cedis (approximately US$100) to a representative of
the school who then disappeared. This highlights
problems of media and technology literacy. As
Charles noted about evaluating these kinds of op-
portunities for legitimacy, “I really have a difªcult
time. Actually yes I’m not able to tell.” He admitted
to being somewhat blinded by his hopefulness,
commenting, “Sometimes you are eager for some-
thing and you come across it, wow you are happy.
You want to go into it. You don’t even take your
time to explore it...”Scamming was not uniquely
a problem of the Internet in Accra; many stories
were also related about losing money to “connec-
tion men”
6
in face-to-face situations. However, an
incomplete understanding of the technology, cou-
pled with the absence of technology-speciªc evalua-
tion skills, made Internet users vulnerable in new
ways. Furthermore, the Internet made it possible for
highly organized, tech-savvy criminal collectives, op-
erating from a great distance, to reach individuals
who often had not yet acquired the knowledge that
would protect them from manipulation.
Internet scammers’ use of alternate identities,
gender switching, and constructions of economic
and professional backgrounds is one realization of
what was recognized early on as the promise of the
Internet: to liberate individuals from bodily and so-
cial constraints (Turkle, 1996; Kitchin, 1998; Lupton,
1995). Yet it is a giant step back from the extremes
of disembodied, even language-less (Sherman &
Judkins, 1992) and “post-symbolic” (Frenkel, 1995)
communion online that were once thought to hold
promise toward transcending differences of gender
and race (Nakamura, 2002; Robins, 1995). Idiosyn-
cratic characters appearing in certain online commu-
nities, particularly those that don’t conform to male
or female gender categories, or are depicted with
cyborg or hybridized human/animal bodies, were
propped up as a supreme example of such possibili-
ties. In various discussion forums, cerebral text-
24 Information Technologies and International Development
PROBLEMATIC EMPOWERMENT: WEST AFRICAN INTERNET SCAMS AS STRATEGIC MISREPRESENTATION
6. “Connection men” operate in the black market, offering back-door ways of getting travel visas as well as other ser-
vices.

based interactions that shed bodily representation
entirely in favor of pure argumentation were also
treated as examples of this transcendence.
By contrast, the scams associated with the West
Africa region illustrate how embodied identity pre-
vails in online interactions. The common question
“asl?” (meaning “age, sex, location?”) that begins
almost every conversation in Yahoo’s chat rooms,
plus the popularity of webcams in these virtual
spaces, is a reminder that many Internet users
around the world remain very interested in bodies
and locations in a real-world context. The strategies
devised by Internet scammers afªliated with the
West Africa region involved the production of narra-
tives that were embedded in a particular socio-
political context with real-world referents. While ulti-
mately ªctional, the narrators in these tales were
embodied; they had an identiªable race and gender.
They were also socially and politically located by
their speciªc nationality, family ties, and professional
afªliations. Scammers treated such embodiments
and afªliations as a strategic resource, drawing
upon (rather than shedding) prejudices, stereotypes,
and enduring social roles. Rather than transcend
bodily difference, their activities play with and reify
such real-world social norms. Furthermore, the de-
sired outcome of these scams—to realize monetary
transfer—made it necessary to divulge such infor-
mation because, ultimately, the scammers’ locally
accessible ªnancial institutions, such as banks or
wire transfer facilities, would be revealed. This calls
into question the capacity for productive and/or em-
powering interaction, particularly transculturally, that
is not embedded in some sense of the ofºine world.
The form of these narratives underlined the chal-
lenges of obtaining that increasingly scarce com-
modity on the Internet: attention.
The Dis-embedding of Information
on the Internet
In this era of “information society” rhetoric, it is
worthwhile to ask whether the concept of “infor-
mation” is relevant in the context of the self-
representation strategies of Internet scammers.
Shifting attention to issues of representation has
highlighted the way scammers invest their energy
into interpreting and constructing an author–
audience relationship through the content of their
messages. Much of the information contained
within these messages was an accounting of social
status, social ties, and available resources that was
meant to persuade the target to act in a desired
manner. This is a sharp contrast to conceptualiza-
tions of the “Information Age” that value the dis-
embedding and circulation of “information” as a
move toward egalitarianism. That view neglects the
way social context and relations of trust function as
a source for knowing how to interpret and use in-
formation and is, itself, vital information (Grano-
vetter, 1985; Molony, 2007; Overå, 2005).
One example of such dis-embedded circulations
within technology for development discourses is
where telecommunications networks are depicted as
facilitating a boundary-less digital marketplace. Ac-
cess to networks provides a point of entrée into an
abstracted global economy. Connectivity is thought
to reconcile previous asymmetries that gave prefer-
ence to nearby sellers and those with a privileged
position in powerful social networks or with access
to scarce information (Eggleston et al., 2002;
Goldstein & O’Connor, 2000; UNCTAD, 2005).
7
Through the elimination of geographic distance and
through the encapsulation of information into trans-
ferable units, newly connected individuals are
thought to share the same advantages through ac-
cess to the same global resource.
In conceptualizations of the “Information Age,”
the origins and sources of the data circulated via
network technologies are often invisible. Instead, in-
formation is treated as homogenous and imper-
sonal, without variation in quality, validity, or
relevance. Manuel Castells promotes this perspective
by drawing an analogy between electricity and in-
formation, the former the driver of the Industrial
Revolution and the latter the driver of the Informa-
tion Revolution (Castells, 2001). In contrast to
Castells’ portrayal of information as a vital and
beneªcial force, Mansell and Wehn question the no-
tion that it has an inherent or universal value, yet
maintain the notion of its impersonal neutrality, so
long as it remains in a digital format. They treat in-
formation as something that, by itself, is non-
semantic in the assertion that “. . . technologies
Volume 4, Number 4, Fall/Winter 2008 25
BURRELL
7. Geertz also addresses information asymmetries, but not within the context of technological connectivity, in the now
classic article on the “Bazaar Economy” (Geertz, 1978).

. . . may provide a new potential for combining the
information embedded in ICT systems with the cre-
ative potential and knowledge embodied in people”
(Mansell & Wehn, 1998, 12). In this recipe, meaning
is produced only after information is appropriated
and interpreted by humans. Information, by itself,
may not be helpful, but neither is it harmful. Roszak
points out that this way of portraying “information”
draws from the post-war emergence of information
theory—a mathematical concept focused on the
mechanisms for transporting data. It is a theory that
is agnostic about the content of the data itself. This
way of perceiving information has become the
“common-sense” deªnition in popular and political
discourse (Barry, 2001; Roszak, 1986). The effect,
Roszak notes, is that information is perceived as
“bland to the core and, for that very reason, nicely
invulnerable. Information smacks of safe neutrality;
it is simple, helpful heaping up of unassailable
facts” (Roszak, 1986, 19). Where information is re-
garded as neutral, the power dynamics at play in
the production of “information” are obscured, and
the reality that what traverses the Internet may in-
clude opinions, lies, nonsense, and biased, incom-
plete, ºattering, or defamatory representations of
individuals and social groups is not confronted.
In early theoretical research, an overextended no-
tion of cyberspace as a distinct spatial terrain com-
pletely disconnected from ofºine life prevailed
(Slater, 2002; Wakeford, 1999). Similarly, the way
the Internet is described as a massive information
accumulation, storage, and distribution system dis-
connects from the story of how such information is
constructed and consumed. In particular, where im-
personal information is described as the central cat-
alyst of development, the Internet’s well-
documented history as a space of meaningful per-
sonal communication is sidelined. The Internet’s ca-
pabilities are compartmentalized. Ultimately,
concrete case studies of how these issues play out
on the ground can be drawn upon, as in this article,
to show how distinctions between information and
communication—in practice—are unclear.
Complicity
The coda to this tale of scamming and self-represen-
tation is that Internet scammers’ complicity in em-
ploying stereotypes of Africa and Africans to carry
out scams ironically has the effect of exacerbating
exactly those representations they resent most. It is
an unfortunate reality that Nigerian 419 e-mail
scams are likely to be the primary association West-
erners have between the Internet and the West Af-
rica region. A recent ABC news report (archived in
both text and video format on the Web site) sug-
gested that an e-mail should be handled cautiously
if “the letter is from Nigeria or another African
country. Or it’s from an African living elsewhere, like
Europe...”(Leamy, 2006). This is an example of
how cases of criminality are extended to cast suspi-
cion on all letter writers on the continent. Similarly,
the practices of “scambaiters” (see www.419eaters
.com) involve tricking scammers, for example, into
producing photos of themselves holding sexually ex-
plicit signs that are then used to publicly ridicule and
dehumanize them (Zook, 2007). The messages care-
fully constructed by scammers are thereby
reappropriated and used against them.
Prins examined a related form of complicity in an
analysis of what he terms the “Primitivist perplex”
where indigenous groups make use of outdated and
inaccurate portraits of a primitive and nature-
centered way of life to make appeals to the larger,
dominating society for autonomy and preservation
(Prins, 2002). Such misrepresentations were em-
braced and promoted for pragmatic purposes. In
both cases, these marginalized groups created repre-
sentations they thought would help secure material
gains such as money, land ownership, or govern-
ment resources. However, the cost, according to
some Ghanaians, was the damage done to Ghana’s
national reputation that had an effect on all Ghana-
ians, not just those directly involved in scamming.
During a radio program on Internet fraud, broadcast
in Accra in February 2005, the discussants suggest
that, in the wake of the Internet, the nation’s repu-
tation is in decline:
Jimmy [guest from GCNet]: “. . . where the im-
pact is on Ghana and Ghana’s credibility and I
don’t think anybody likes the idea of Ghana be-
ing described as the rising star of Internet fraud.”
Bernard [host]: “We were the black star of Africa,
now we’re the rising star of Internet fraud.”
Jimmy [guest from GCNet]: “Well both of them
have star inside, let’s try and move negativities
out of our stars.”
As a point of contrast between the past and the
present, they make reference to the national pride
over Ghana’s independence movement: it was the
26 Information Technologies and International Development
PROBLEMATIC EMPOWERMENT: WEST AFRICAN INTERNET SCAMS AS STRATEGIC MISREPRESENTATION

ªrst state in Africa to carry out a successful and
peaceful campaign to end colonial rule achieving in-
dependence in 1957. Kwaku, an employed 21-year-
old and former Internet user, described more pro-
saic, non-scamming activities, such as the request
for small amounts of money from chat partners, in
similar terms. He commented:
I tried [to ask a chat partner for money]...I
think I lost the friendship that I had with the
friend...ifIwrite to her she doesn’t reply. So I
say we should stop doing those things, but if we
keep on asking for money people will think
maybe we are beggars...Itisvery bad. Because
we are smart people we can use our brains be-
cause when Ghanaians go to the U.S. if you go
most of the time they are on top. They go to the
Universities and schools they are on top of the
schools...weshould use our intelligence and
stop requesting money and people referring to us
as...beggars. That’s what will help us and it will
create a good image for people in the nation too.
Despite the way Ghana and Africa have been, in
their view, misrepresented over the years, and de-
spite the complicity of Internet scammers in these
misrepresentations, these Ghanaian citizens main-
tained the hope that a more positive representation
of their nation could somehow be sent out into the
wider world.
Conclusion
On the issue of media representations, it has been
proposed that technologies, like the Internet, that
de-professionalize media production make it possi-
ble for members of marginalized societies to repre-
sent themselves, make their interests known, and
reach a wider public (Castells, 1997; Froehling,
1999; Ginsburg, 1994; Spitulnik, 2002; Turner,
1992). However, Internet scammers point out that,
beyond the technological capabilities of publication,
there is the important matter of audience. Scam-
mers felt that they could not get attention without
misrepresenting themselves in a stereotyped fashion,
that foreign audiences were deaf to more authentic
representations. Scammers perceived the strategic
employment of ªctional identities as a way of gain-
ing attention from a disinterested Western audience.
Through their efforts, they sought to unite their
own interests with the self-interest of their audi-
ence. For this reason they were willingly complicit in
the exacerbation of the stereotypes of Africa and
Africans that they portrayed.
The arguments made for connectivity as a valu-
able social good often point to the capacity for dis-
embedding information from location and social
context. Yet, the case of Internet fraud demon-
strates that the Internet is not universally experi-
enced as a neutral space, an impartial repository of
information. Particularly, where it is used (as it was
among Internet scammers) to address real-world as-
pirations and privations, the Internet does not es-
cape from the complexities of human relationships
and problems of ethnocentrism, prejudice, and
greed. It is yet another space where the complex
and problematic conditions of post-coloniality and
embodied identity are played out.
Growing awareness of scamming exists in high
level government ofªces and in the sphere of inter-
national development work (U.S. Department of
State, 1997; UN Ofªce on Drugs and Crime, 2005),
yet this awareness has not been linked to debates
over technology and development. The fear ex-
pressed by Internet users in Accra of becoming a
scam victim suggests that they associate risk, not
just promise and possibility, with Internet connectiv-
ity. Yet information technologies are consistently
portrayed at events like WSIS as tools for risk reduc-
tion. For example, technology is thought to reduce
the risk of accidents traveling on bad roads
(Danofsky, 2005), of being victimized in a natural di-
saster (Stauffacher, 2005), and of falling behind in a
competitive global economy, where a divide is grow-
ing between those with and those without access to
new technologies. Emerging technology practices
like scamming that challenge the beneªts of con-
nectivity must be more directly addressed in technol-
ogy for development movements. The creation of
necessary supporting structures—speciªcally, train-
ing in media and technology literacy—that would
mitigate these disruptions should be integral to all
technology access initiatives.
While successful Internet scams may transfer
wealth and, therefore, some degree of power to
scammers, they come at a broader cost to national
and ethnic reputations and representations. Ulti-
mately, they affect access of the larger society to le-
gitimate venues for self-improvement. Scamming is,
therefore, a problematic empowerment. The poten-
tial for empowerment through media production re-
lies on producers who represent themselves in
authentic as well as strategic ways, ideally, “render-
Volume 4, Number 4, Fall/Winter 2008 27
BURRELL

ing visible indigenous cultural and historical realities
to themselves and the broader societies who have
stereotyped and denied them” (Ginsburg, 1994,
378). This involves knowing how to speak to these
broader societies to gain attention and inspire ac-
tion. The argument made here is not that empower-
ment is impossible, but rather that further
discussions need to address conditions that facilitate
empowering self-expression versus conditions where
individuals become complicit in their own damaging
self-representations. Researchers need to examine
the exchanges and interactions that take place
within these new transcultural connections. Looking
solely at the material possibilities, without consider-
ing the resulting social dynamics, provides an incom-
plete answer to the question of empowerment. 
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30 Information Technologies and International Development
PROBLEMATIC EMPOWERMENT: WEST AFRICAN INTERNET SCAMS AS STRATEGIC MISREPRESENTATION