Title: Anthropology: Taking it mobile
Author: kiwanja (Ken Banks)
Source: Build it Kenny, and they will come…
Date (published): 08/05/2010
Date (accessed): 10/05/2010
Type of information: blog post
Language: English
On-line access: yes (HTML)
Abstract:
Anyone taking more than a passing glance at the kiwanja.net website shouldn’t need long to figure out my four key areas of interest. I’ve always maintained that if your ideal job doesn’t exist then you have to create it, and being able to combine my passions for technology, anthropology, conservation and development is for me – through kiwanja.net – that dream job.

Saying that, it doesn’t go without its challenges. Putting aside the difficulties faced by the global conservation and development communities, most of my thinking today centres around the sometimes uncomfortable tension between appropriate technology and the mobile phone, and the potential role of applied anthropology in helping us understand what on earth is going on out there. We can’t always rely on Indiana Jones, Hollywood’s answer to anthropology, to get us all the answers.

Title: “i-Internet? Intle” (beautiful): Exploring first-time internet use via mobile phones in a South African women’s collective
Author Editor: Shikoh Gitau, Jonathan Donner, Gary Marsden
Pages: 15 pp.
Date (published): 31/08/2009
Date (accessed): 06/11/2009
Type of information: research paper
Language: English
On-line access: yes (HTML)
Abstract:
"This study reports results of an ethnographic action research study, exploring mobile-centric internet use. Over the course of 13 weeks, eight women, each a member of a livelihoods collective in urban Cape Town, South Africa, received training to make use of the data (internet) features on the phones they already owned. None of the women had previous exposure to PCs or the internet. Activities focused on social networking, entertainment, information search, and, in particular, job searches. Results of the exercise reveal both the promise of, and barriers to, mobile internet use by a potentially large community of first-time, mobile-centric users. Discussion focuses on the importance of self-expression and identity management in the refinement of online and offline presences, and considers these forces relative to issues of gender and socioeconomic status."

Please note: This is a prepublication draft of the paper prepared on 31 August 2009 – additional changes and edits are possible. Contact the authors before quoting this version.

Title: Mobile phones : the new talking drums of everyday Africa
Editors: Mirjam Elisabeth de Bruijn, Francis Beng Nyamnjoh, Inge Brinkman
Pages: 173 pp.
ISBN: 995-655853-2, 978-995-655853-7
Publisher: Langaa Research and Publishing Common Initiative Group, Bamenda, Cameroon
Date (published): 2009.
Date (accessed): 06/11/2009
Type of information: book
Language: English
On-line access: yes (HTML), only the the catalogue
Abstract:
" 'We cannot imagine life now without a mobile phone' is a frequent comment when Africans are asked about mobile phones. They have become part and parcel of the communication landscape in many urban and rural areas of Africa and the growth of mobile telephony is significant: from 1 in 50 people being users in 2000 to 1 in 3 in 2008. This collective volume examines the many ways in which mobile phones are being appropriated by Africans and how they are transforming or are being transformed by society. It brings together reflections on developments around the mobile phone by scholars of six African countries (Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ghana, Mali, Sudan and Tanzania) who explore the economic, social and cultural contexts in which the mobile phone is being adopted, adapted and harnessed by mobile Africa. The papers were earlier presented at a workshop in the Netherlands in 2006. Contributions: An excerpt from 'Married but available', a novel by Francis B. Nyamnjoh; Introduction: mobile communication and new social spaces in Africa (Mirjam de Bruijn, Francis B. Nyamnjoh & Inge Brinkman); Phoning anthropologists: the mobile phone's (re-)schaping of anthropological research (Lotte Pelckmans); From the elitist to the commonality of voice communication: the history of the telephone in Buea, Cameroon (Walter Gam Nkwi); The mobile phone, 'modernity' and change in Khartoum, Sudan (Inge Brinkman, Mirjam de Bruijn & Hisham Bilal); Trading places in Tanzania: mobility and marginalization at a time of travel-saving technologies (Thomas Molony); Téléphonie mobile: l'appropriation du SMS par une 'société de l'oralité' (Ludovic Kibora); The healer and his phone: medicinal dynamics among the Kapsiki/Higi of North Cameroon (Wouter van Beek); The mobility of a mobile phone: examining 'Swahiliness' through an object's biography (Julia Pfaff); Could connectivity replace mobility? An analysis of Internet café use pattersn in Accra, Ghana (Jenna Burrell)"

""An insightful introduction to mobile cultures in Africa and, in particular, the relationship between mobile phones and identity formation in the formal and informal arenas of marginality, its role in disabling tradition and enabling social change. A must read."
Associate Professor Pradip Thomas, University of Queensland, Australia."

""This book goes beyond the technology hype on wireless and mobile. It digs deep in the social roots and relationship patterns that are impacting on Africa's cultural identity and communication modes. The emerging picture may be troubling for some, and liberating for others. A must read!"
Professor Jan Servaes, Director 'Communication for Sustainable Social Change' Center, University of Massachusetts."

See also