Side Ways Mobile Margins And The Dynamics Of Communication In Africa

Marginality does not mean isolation. In Africa where people are permanently on the move in search, inter alia, of a 'better elsewhere', marginality means disconnection to obvious possibilities and the invisibility of the myriad connections that make life possible for the ordinarily sidestepped. This book is about the workings of networks of the mobile in Africa, a continent usually associated with the 'global shadows' of the world. How do changes in the possibilities for communication, with the recent hype of mobile technology, influence the social and economic dynamics in Africa's mobile margins? To what extent is the freedom associated with new Information and Communication Technologies reality or disillusion for people dwelling in the margins? Are ordinary Africans increasingly Side@Ways? How social are these emergent Side@Ways? Contributions to answering these and related questions are harvested from ethnographic insights by team members of the WOTRO funded 'Mobile Africa revisited' research programme hosted by the African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands.

This is a study on the creative appropriation of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) by mobile Africans and the communities to which they belong, home and away. With a focus on Cameroonian migrants from Pinyin and Mankon who are currently living in Cape Town and the Netherlands, this book examines the workings of the social fabric of mobile communities. It sheds light on how these communities are crafting lives for themselves in the host country and simultaneously linking up with the home country thanks to advances in ICTs and road and air transport. ICTs and mobilities have complemented social relational interaction and provide migrants today with opportunities to partake in cultural practices that express their Pinyin-ness and Mankon-ness. Pinyin and Mankon migrants are still as rooted in the past as they are in the present. They were born into a community with its own sense of home, moral ethos and cultural pride but live in a context of accelerated ICTs and mobility that is fast changing the way they live their lives. Drawing on this detailed ethnographic case study and related literature, Henrietta Nyamnjoh argues that while ICTs continue to enhance mobility for those who move and for those who stay put, they have become inextricably linked in forging networks and reconfiguring existing ones. Contrary to earlier studies that predicted radical social change and the passing of traditional societies in the face of new technologies, ICTs have been appropriated to enhance the workings of existing social relations and ways of life while simultaneously pointing to new directions in ever more creative and innovative ways.

This handbook attempts to fill the gap in empirical scholarship of media and communication research in Africa, from an Africanist perspective. The collection draws on expert knowledge of key media and communication scholars in Africa and the diaspora, offering a counter-narrative to existing Western and Eurocentric discourses of knowledge-production. As the decolonial turn takes centre stage across Africa, this collection further rethinks media and communication research in a post-colonial setting and provides empirical evidence as to why some of the methods conceptualised in Europe will not work in Africa. The result is a thorough appraisal of the current threats, challenges and opportunities facing the discipline on the continent.

Pastoralists throughout Africa face increasing pressures. In Benin, governmental development policies and programmes in crop farming are changing power relations between herders and farmers to favour the latter. How are the Fulani pastoralists responding to these threats to their existence? Georges Djohy explores the dynamics in local use of natural resources and in inter-ethnic relations resulting from development interventions. He combines the approaches of science and technology studies – looking at the co-construction of society and technology – and political ecology – looking at the power relations shaping the dynamics of economic, environmental and social change – so as to throw light on the forces of marginalisation, adaptation and innovation at work in northern Benin. Having worked there for many years, Djohy has been able to uncover gradual processes of socio-technological change that are happening “behind the scenes” of agricultural development involving mechanisation, herbicide use, tree planting, land registration and natural resource conservation. He reveals how farmers are using these interventions as “weapons” in order to gain more rights over larger areas of land, in other words, to support indigenous land grabbing from herders who had been using the land since decades for grazing. He documents how the Fulani are innovating to ensure their survival, e.g. by using new technologies for transport and communication, developing new strategies of livestock feeding and herd movement, and developing complementary sources of household income. The Fulani are organising themselves from local to national level to provide technological and socio-cultural services, manage conflicts and gain a stronger political voice, e.g. to be able to achieve demarcation of corridors for moving livestock through cultivated areas. They even use non-functioning mini-dairies – another example of development intervention – to demonstrate their modernity and to open up other opportunities to transform their pastoral systems. This book provides insights into normally hidden technical and social dynamics that are unexpected outcomes of development interventions.

What does it mean to be marginal? For residents of Cape Town's Langa Township, being considered marginal is subject to a host of social, physical and sometimes materialistic qualifications - not least of which is owning a mobile phone. Through various presentations of unique aspects of township life revealed through ethnographic snapshots, this book reveals the complex realities of marginalization experienced by some residents in Langa Township, located in Cape Town, South Africa. Mobile phones have been embraced and accommodated by both local South Africans and African immigrant residents living and working in Langa. Among other things, the technology has become a way of challenging (real and imagined) marginalities within the township in particular and South Africa in general. The book provides empirical data on the role of technology in regards to migration and notions of belonging; specifically the ways that technology has mitigated distance for residents, provided opportunities for development, facilitated the negotiation of various marginalities, and offered new ways of belonging for Langa residents.

With the increase of digital and networked media in everyday life, researchers have increasingly turned their gaze to the symbolic and cultural elements of technologies. From studying online game communities, locative and social media to YouTube and mobile media, ethnographic approaches to digital and networked media have helped to elucidate the dynamic cultural and social dimensions of media practice. The Routledge Companion to Digital Ethnography provides an authoritative, up-to-date, intellectually broad, and conceptually cutting-edge guide to this emergent and diverse area. Features include: a comprehensive history of computers and digitization in anthropology; exploration of various ethnographic methods in the context of digital tools and network relations; consideration of social networking and communication technologies on a local and global scale; in-depth analyses of different interfaces in ethnography, from mobile technologies to digital archives.

This book discusses the growing media engagement between China and Africa from the point of view of both these regions. The rapid increase in Sino-African contact has led to many controversies and debates in the media, often represented in simplistic terms and stereotypes that call for more in-depth scholarly analysis. Not only have the relationship between Africa and China made headlines in the media, but the media itself has also become increasingly central in the exchanges of capital and human resources between these two regions. The media has also become the terrain where China’s new foreign policy takes shape in the form of ‘soft power’. This volume brings together authors from Africa, China, the US, UK and Europe to provide analysis, comment and empirical evidence to deepen our understanding of how the geopolitical shift towards the emerging regions of China and Africa are playing out on media terrain. The implications for transnational flows of media capital and content on journalistic approaches, press freedom and normative frameworks are discussed, as well as how African journalists have responded to these changes. The result is a collection of perspectives that refuses simplistic conclusions about what the growing engagement between China and Africa might mean, but presents a range of arguments informed by scholarly research. This book was originally published as a special issue of Ecquid Novi: African Journalism Studies.

Mobile media such as smartphones, apps, and social media are an integral part of everyday life, used by billions of people around the world. For students and researchers, mobile media also offer a treasure trove of new concepts, methods, and techniques to do research – representing a new phase in digital methods. Across disciplines, researchers rely upon mobile media for quantitative and qualitative projects, to gather data and document sound and images, engage with participants, and disseminate findings. This is the first textbook devoted to explaining these innovative and groundbreaking mobile media methods. Exploring the opportunities and limitations mobile media offer for methods, the book covers a range of topics from mobilities and placemaking to virtual reality and AI, as well as new kinds of mobility such as e-scooters and connected cars. Student-friendly features such as practical guidance on how to gather and analyse data alongside exercises are also included. Underscoring the book throughout is the definition of methods as not just a series of tools and techniques, but as an invitation to rethink how to conceptualize, practice, study and theorize the relationship between research, data and the field. Drawing from the best of mobile and digital communication research, Mobile Media Methods offers a clear, accessible, and practical guide to mobile media methods. It is essential reading and a useful resource for students and scholars of digital technology and research methods.