"This book is about the many ways in which mobile phones are being appropriated by Africans and how they are transforming and are being transformed by society in Africa. A case study from Karthoum (Sudan) shows, how mobile phones are reshaping relationships in a Muslim society, where they enable women to organize their lives more independently. In Cameroon, the mobile allows traditional healers to assist sick people who are originally from their area but are now far away, sometimes even in Europe or the USA. Another study from Burkina Faso highlights the growing importance of text messaging - as contrary to the overstated orality both of African societies and of the mobile phone. The nine chapters in this volume all show aspects of an emerging mobile culture, be it the linkage between the rural and the urban in Burkina Faso, the youth in Ghana or traders in Tanzania. In all of these, the authors observe a reshaping of social and economic hierarchies in society. Based on the illustrative case studies and its multi-dimensional approach this book is highly recommended reading." (CAMECO Update 3-2009)
Contents
An excerpt from 'Married But Available', a novel / Francis B. Nyamnjoh, 1
1 Mobile communications and new social spaces in Africa / Mirjam de Bruijn, Francis B. Nyamnjoh, Inge Brinkman, 11
2 Phoning anthropologists: the mobile phone's (re- )shaping of anthropological research / Lotte Pelckmans, 23
3 From the elitist to the commonality of voice communication : the history of the telephone in Buea, Cameroon / Walter Gam Nkwi, 50
4 The mobile phone, 'modernity' and change in Khartoum, Sudan / Inge Brinkman, Mirjam de Bruijn, Hisham Bilal, 69
5 Trading places in Tanzania : mobile and marginalisation at a time of travel-saving technologies / Thomas Molony, 92
6 Téléphonie mobile : l'appropriation du SMS par une "société de l'oralité" / Ludovic Kibora, 110
7 The healer and his phone : medicinal dynamics among the Kapsiki Higi of North Cameroon / Wouter van Beek, 125
8 The mobility of a mobile phone : examining 'Swahiliness' through an object's biography / Julia Pfaff, 134
9 Could connectivity replace mobility? An analysis of Internet café use patterns in Accra, Ghana / Jenna Burrell, 151