Customer Reviews

The Cell Phone: An Anthropology of Communication

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In a global environment where mobile technologies are making impressive and influential in-roads into many societis and cultures, this ethnographically based study of the impact of cell phones on low-income populations in Jamaica is a valuable piece of scholarship. Based on two-years of ethnographic study in a rural and urban area of Jamaica, Horst and Miller's effort to construct an 'anthropology of communication' is accessible, yet strongly grounded in theory. Through avoiding technological and socially deterministic approaches and carefully examining the contradictions inherent in the deployment of cell phones throughout poorer sections of Jamaican society, the advantages and difficulties of this new technology are presented clearly, wreathed in the complications of everyday Jamaican life. The use of extensive ethnographic data (impressive in its scope) presented as short case studies, provide a clear sense of realism for the contextualisation of their examination of communication as an anthropological experience, with impacts for economics and policy. In examining the Jamaican experience specifically, this work may be limited in its use in other contexts, but still provides an important model for researchers in similar areas. Grounded in the reality of everyday Jamaican life, "The Cell Phone" succeeds as "...a study of the changes that document and demonstrate what a cell phone can turn into in the hands of a Jamaican, and what a Jamaican can become when they have their hands on a cell phone."(181)

An important piece of scholarship for anyone interested in the impact of technologies on people, cultures and societies.