Mobile Phones: The New Talking Drums of Everyday Africa

4. The mobile phone, ‘modernity’ and change in Khartoum, Sudan

4 The mobile phone, ‘modernity’ and change in Khartoum, Sudan Inge Brinkman, Mirjam de Bruijn & Hisham Bilal Introduction This chapter considers the impact and appropriation of the mobile phone in Khartoum , the capital of Sudan, by focusing on the social and cultural processes that accompany it. Central to our argument are local interpretations and meanings attributed to the mobile phone. These new dynamics and debates involve topics as diverse as morality and landscape, family ties and linguistic puns. Through this wide variety of themes we gather not only the hopes and aspirations but also the fears and critique that people in Khartoum may have in connection with the mobile phone. During its short history, the socio-economic meaning and effect of the mobile phone in Khartoum have undergone vast changes. As the mobile phone was first introduced in Khartoum in 1997, its initial glamour has started to wear off and people are now assessing not only their positive experiences with mobile phones but also the problems related to mobile telephony. People in Khartoum describe the impact of the introduction of the mobile as a combination of benefits and disadvantages , of opportunities and restrictions. Many have come to appreciate the 70 INGE BRINKMAN, MIRJAM DE BRUIJN & HISHAM BILAL possibilities offered by mobile telephony but are wary of the risks and social problems involved. The focus during the team’s fieldwork was, although not exclusively, on university circles and networks related to the educated. Students are known to form an important group of mobile telephone users despite their sometimes limited financial means. And quite a number of university graduates have found employment in the mobile telephone business. For this case-study, some eighteen people working in the sector were interviewed. Except for one, all of them were men. Although a number of women are active in the mobile telephone business, the great majority are male. Interviews were held with people from the highest level in the sector to credit sellers in the market, and they all talked about their activities in the business as well as of their experiences with mobile telephony as end-users. In addition, eight end-users, four of them women, and one non-user were interviewed. The interviews were conducted in various parts of Greater Khartoum. This chapter is based on research carried out as a pilot study in the framework of collaboration between the telecom company Zain and the African Studies Centre in Leiden that started in July 2007. The study aimed to interpret the interaction between new ICT and social relations, especially with regards to mobility patterns. It consisted of three case-studies: one in Karima, a small town in the north, one focusing on the recent developments in communication technologies in Juba in Southern Sudan and the case-study presented here in Khartoum. The term ‘interaction ’ was crucial in our focus: we explicitly view ICT not only as shaping societies but also as societies shaping new ICT (de Bruijn & Brinkman 2008). Such interaction can only be studied meaningfully with a qualitative methodology . Qualitative research engenders a better understanding of people’s evaluations of the mobile phone and the meanings attributed to new communication technologies . The study was inspired by other studies on mobile telephony based on observations in Latin America, the US and Europe. In their approach towards ‘communication anthropology’, Horst & Miller (2006) studied the social relations that are created by the use of the mobile phone. Goggin (2006) and Katz (2006) offer an interpretation of aspects of mobile phone culture in which the issue of identity is central. In these approaches, new communication technologies are not seen in deterministic terms: the introduction of the mobile phone does not automatically dictate changes in society. On the contrary, technology and society are defined in a relationship of mutual appropriation. This has also informed our approach and we argue against the thesis of technological determinism that presumes a causal relationship between technology and society. Processes of such mutual appropriation in the past may be instructive, and since such appropriation is likely to be related to particular historical, socio-cultural, economic and political contexts, we THE MOBILE PHONE IN KHARTOUM 71 seek to combine the anthropological qualitative approach with historical interpretation . The project in Sudan was a pilot study. It was conducted over a five-month period and included a literature study, fieldwork, the transcription of interviews and observations, the writing of a report and the...