The mobile phone and society in South Sudan: A critical historical-anthropological approach

Abstract

C o p y r i g h t I n t e l l e c t L t d 2 0 1 7 N o t f o r d i s t r i b u t i o n

Precarious technoscapes: forced mobility and mobile connections at the urban margins

“…The fact that telecommunications companies have become key players in the complex political economy of humanitarianism illustrates how the impact of ICT diffusion cannot be conceptualised solely through a micro-level focus on individual device use. Similarly, Brinkman et al (2017) analyse South Sudan's mobile phone industry and infrastructure, emphasising the embeddedness of the sector in the political economy of mobility, displacement and speculation around emerging ICT markets. Nonetheless, micro-level data on the ICT use of the urban poor is lacking.…”

“…Exploring multiple and diverse encounters through the lens of ICT infrastructure and its usage demonstrates how these particulars are embedded in wider networks and flows. This is more illuminating of conditions and practices of urban precarity than focusing simply on the 'effects' of technologies on particular groups (Brinkman et al 2017).…”

Grand Challenges in Studying Comparative Governance

“…Arguably, today more than ever, different forms of governance can be best understood by looking through different disciplinary lenses and perspectives. Anthropologists, for example, are able to deliver insights on how governance in non-Western societies is changed and challenged by responses to technological change, such as the wide-spread use of mobile phones in Africa (e.g., Brinkman et al, 2017). While governance of markets and monetary systems may be the domain of economists, responses to economic decisions and monetary arrangements that change economic governance can only be understood with the help of political scientists and historians (e.g., Kleider and Stoeckel, 2019).…”