Infrastructural configurations of mobile telephony in urban Africa: vignettes from Buru Buru, Nairobi

IF 0.9 3区社会学 Q2 AREA STUDIES

Journal of Eastern African Studies Pub Date : 2021-10-02 DOI:10.1080/17531055.2021.1989138

P. Guma, Mwangi Mwaura

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引用次数: 3

Abstract

ABSTRACT Since its inception in the 1990s, mobile telephony in Africa has evolved, reflecting varied advances in technology. These advances have become particularly reminiscent of the role of mobile technologies in everyday facets of life. In this paper, we examine infrastructural configurations of mobile telephony in an urban African context. We demonstrate how urban Africa is being instrumented through the incoming of mobile telephony, but also how the convergence of the digital and the physical is materializing through the everyday use and appropriation of mobile phone-based technologies. We make this contribution through illustrations and vignettes – including Mkokoteni handcart operations, electricity “token” meter connections, and mobile phone kiosk processes – from Buru Buru, an estate in Nairobi. Thus, we place our analysis within recent area studies scholarship, drawing perspectives from science, technology and society studies, infrastructure studies and urban studies. We contend that the variegated infrastructural configurations of mobile telephony challenge ingrained accounts of technological determinism, not least within conventional area studies.

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非洲城市移动电话的基础设施配置:内罗毕布鲁布鲁的小插图

自20世纪90年代成立以来，非洲的移动电话不断发展，反映了技术的各种进步。这些进步特别让人想起移动技术在日常生活中的作用。在本文中，我们研究了非洲城市背景下移动电话的基础设施配置。我们展示了非洲城市是如何通过移动电话的传入被工具化的，也展示了数字和物理的融合是如何通过日常使用和使用基于移动电话的技术来实现的。我们通过内罗毕Buru Buru村的插图和小插图做出了贡献，包括Mkokoteni手推车操作、电力“代币”电表连接和移动电话亭流程。因此，我们将我们的分析放在最近的区域研究奖学金中，从科学、技术和社会研究、基础设施研究和城市研究中汲取观点。我们认为，移动电话多样化的基础设施配置挑战了根深蒂固的技术决定论，尤其是在传统的区域研究中。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Journal of Eastern African Studies AREA STUDIES-

CiteScore

3.30

自引率

7.10%

发文量

期刊介绍： Journal of Eastern African Studies is an international publication of the British Institute in Eastern Africa, published four times each year. It aims to promote fresh scholarly enquiry on the region from within the humanities and the social sciences, and to encourage work that communicates across disciplinary boundaries. It seeks to foster inter-disciplinary analysis, strong comparative perspectives, and research employing the most significant theoretical or methodological approaches for the region.