Week 1 - Counting Unicorns

One of my biggest struggles studying, living, working, researching in Kenya was how to articulate the seeming disconnect between what the neat and tidy formulas in Actuarial Science, Finance and Mathematics as a discipline sway me to; and the reality "kwa - ground" . The process is positivist. Here is the neat and tidy Black Scholes formula. Pick the NSE data and if things dont fit, my data must be panel beaten to fit!

In Kenya only 1% have formally identified insurance. in reality individuals, family, community are very active risk managers from the less risky agrarian way of life, communal living and... MPESA innovation for those who have to share with those who do not have. Insurance is embedded in our way of life. Counting only inked policies was just the unicorn - the misnomer?

Here is the problem with the setup - On the one hand Public institutions, infrastructures and resources are set up with public resources to manage the unicorns.

On the other hand - though robust, my embedded insurance lacks resilience in catastrophic situations (when we really need the support) and is often very expensive when money is demanded 'now' creating breaks (dips and peaks) in the financial life cycle.

It is refreshing to understand that every theory has a context (a setting of the challenges the human society was undergoing then), a manifested problem and the proposed solution which often is embedded in acceptance to the culture and practices of that society. For instance, Karl Max reviewed a period when the European society was transforming from Agrarian to Industrialist. There was a trigger - land, previously publicly accessible was now being privatized and the peasants had to move to the urban areas - there was no fall back plan (no upcountry). However, the new industrialized reality was not meeting its promise of betterment of life. Why? Karl Max felt there was the dead capital (the rights to land, the money, the equipment) and Living capital (the labourers). The dead capital owners were overstepping and not fairly compensating the living capital. Change, in his eyes, would happen in the factory and driven by the people through a revolution. Emil Durkheim was also reviewing the same problem but from a French lens. The trigger in his case - Suicides! Why, with the promise of prosperity were people running out of social cushions and giving up? His argument this rapid change created a lag with the values and cultures in these urban areas still not settled. How would things improve? Institutions would strengthen. Church and beliefs an anchor.

We study these theories to understand how to form theories and look at parallels. But ultimately the PhD challenge is to generate your own theories relevant to your contexts - problems defined as manifested in your reality - solutions contextualized to accepted cultures and way of life and beliefs.