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In many academic fields the researcher often financially remunerates both research assistants and participants. Literature covers the ethics involved in paying informants. Both research design and research methodology literature covers many important aspects of the research process, but neither pays much attention to the issue of research assistants. These relationships can be complicated by the dynamics of an outsider researcher working in a southern context. Drawing upon examples of researcher-research assistant in the field, in Tanzania and South Africa, this paper explores the ethics of financial transactions in researcher-assistant relationships and the ways in which wealth asymmetry can affect the working relationship. We conclude by stating our belief that these issues have not been adequately addressed elsewhere, and that there is an imperative for due consideration in training and planning for these relationships to be considered as integral and visible to the research and writing phases.

A B S T R A C TPoor farmers often lack credit to purchase agricultural inputs, and rely on their buyers to provide it. This paper considers the effects of mobile phones on traders of perishable foodstuffs operating between Tanzania's Southern Highlands and Dar es Salaam's wholesale market, with a particular focus on the importance of credit in the relationship between potato and tomato farmers and their wholesale buyers. It argues that the ability to communicate using these new information and communication technologies (ICTs) does not significantly alter the trust relationship between the two groups. It also suggests that farmers, in effect, often have to accept the price they are told their crops are sold for -irrespective of the method of communication used to convey this message -because their buyers are also their creditors. In this situation, many farmers are unable to exploit new mobile phone-based services to seek information on market prices, and potential buyers in other markets. Doing so runs the risk of breaking a long-term relationship with a buyer who is willing to supply credit because of their established business interaction. It is suggested that, under a more open system than currently exists in Tanzania, mobile-payment ('m-payment ') applications should target these creditor-buyers as key agents in connecting farmers to the credit they so often require.

Although the research community is now starting to provide a more detailed understanding of the magnitude and details of small businesses' greater access to information and communication technology (ICT), there is still a poor understanding of social capital and trust, two important (but not necessarily related) concepts that are largely missing from information and communication technology for development (ICT4D) scholarship. This article aims to fill the knowledge gap by profiling three Tanzanian businesswomen who have managed to enter the high-profit area of bulk exporting African blackwood ("ebony") carvings. Their experience shows the successful use of a spread of ICT applications, and e-mail in particular, as crucial tools to build on existing networks and to maintain trust with wealthy foreign buyers. With the help of ICT to deal with these relationships, the women stay in touch by "keeping up appearances" at a social level, albeit at a distance. In doing so, they are managing to do what institutions are yet to achieve: the move from personal to impersonal exchange. Their experience has implications for how other entrepreneurs can use ICT to leverage resources, ideas, and information from contacts outside their own social milieu. C 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.