Reconceptualizing the Indigenous Peoples in the Era of Digital Disruption

How scholars’ and experts’ cognitive models impact the extent the indigenous peoples benefit from financial inclusion programs has not enjoyed the rate of attention it deserves among researchers. The chapter, therefore, explains how scholars’ and experts’ cognitive models determine the ways the indigenous peoples, digital disruption, inequality, and financial inclusion are inappropriately conceptualized in official circles. The chapter further explains how the inappropriate conceptualization leads to the financial exclusion of the indigenous peoples in sub-Saharan Africa and the need to reexamine the concepts. The reexamination will enable key stakeholders to review their cognitive models and reconceptualize the indigenous peoples, digital disruption, inequality, and financial inclusion and, as a result, promote the achievement of the SDG-10. The concepts of the indigenous peoples, digital disruption, inequality, and financial inclusion proposed in the chapter provide new ways of looking at the factors that promote financial exclusion among the indigenous peoples. The concepts align more with notions in theoretical propositions in capability theories, everyday life phenomenology, cognitive model, and constructivism. Therefore, the chapter is useful to governments, policymakers, and those who use SDG-10 as a framework to ensure the eradication of financial exclusion among the indigenous peoples and other marginalized groups in sub-Saharan Africa.