Mobile Assemblages and Maendeleo in Rural Kenya

Jerop Komen

Description

In this book, Leah Komen explores the impact of mobile telephony on the lives of people in rural Kenya. The book analyses the outcomes of complex intersections and interactions between mobile phones, individuals, and the broader society as distinct from the traditional cause-effect relationships in the discourse of development in the changing world. It subverts the traditional notion of synchronic development that ignores target populations' involvement in decision-making and sees development from the lens of developed economies where information and communication technologies like mobile telephones have originated. Komen's analysis advances a diachronic type of development that focuses on human technology's interrelationships instead of the synchronic model that privileges technology as engendering social transformations and development. The diachronic model is fundamentally Maendeleo, a Swahili term denoting process, participation, progress, and growth, and views social transformations and development as an interaction between mobile telephony users and their specific contexts. The book argues that the mobile phone has become an increasingly personalised device. It encourages a sense of community through the sharing of the device by multiple users, promotes co-presence and interpersonal communication, enhances kinship ties and social connectedness, and creates new ways of organising and conducting everyday socioeconomic activities. However, it also can disintegrate relationships and remodel some. This is a book about power negotiation, gender relations, cultural inclinations, and socio-economic dispositions within the context of mobile telephony's domestic use to facilitate social change and development.

Sujets

• African Studies
• Ethnic Studies
• Development studies
• Communication studies
• Social sciences
• Anthropology

Informations

• Publié par: Langaa RPCIG
• Date de parution: 17 septembre 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9789956552276
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

communication in rural Kenya. She is a scholar who is uniquely qualified to be our guide as she is well-grounded in the local context and she has the insight with which to understand mobile communications effect on local lives. The book provides an ethnographic

the Swahili word maendeleo) the lives of women in Marakwet, Kenya. Along the way, she

helps us to understand how mobile communication changes and alters the functioning of

ICTs by otherwise marginalised Africans to activate and extend themselves in ways that challenge conventional articulations of power and keep hope alive.”

cause-effect relationships in the discourse of development in the changing world. It subverts the traditional notion of synchronic development that ignores target populations’ involvement in decision-making and sees development from the lens of developed economies where information and communication technologies like mobile telephones have originated. Komen’s analysis advances a diachronic type of development that focuses on human technology’s interrelationships instead of the synchronic model that privileges technology as engendering social transformations and development. The diachronic model is fundamentally Maendeleo, a Swahili term denoting process, participation, progress, and growth, and views social transformations and development as an interaction between mobile telephony users and their specific contexts. The book argues that the mobile phone has become an increasingly personalised device. It encourages a sense of community through the sharing of the device by multiple users, promotes co-presence and

new ways of organising and conducting everyday socioeconomic activities. However, it also can disintegrate relationships and remodel some. This is a book about power negotiation, gender relations, cultural inclinations, and socio-economic dispositions within the context of mobile telephony’s domestic use to facilitate social change and development.

Research and Postgraduate Studies at Daystar University, Kenya. She holds a PhD in New Media and Development from University of East London, UK. Dr. Komen is published in peer-reviewed journals and is involved in teaching and supervision of postgraduate students in Kenya and beyond. She is also an external examiner in several African Universities. Her research interests include: the domestication of mobile communication technologies in Africa and how human-technology and context interrelationships form part of social assemblages that intersect for Development.

Mobile Assemblages and Maendeleo in Rural Kenya

Leah Jerop Komen

Mobile Assemblages and Maendeleo in Rural Kenya Leah Jerop Komen

L a ng a a R esea rch & P u blishing CIG Mankon, Bamenda

Publisher: LangaaRPCIG Langaa Research & Publishing Common Initiative Group P.O. Box 902 Mankon Bamenda North West Region Cameroon [e-mail] www.langaa-rpcig.net Distributed in and outside N. America by African Books Collective [e-mail] www.africanbookscollective.com

ISBN-10: 9956-552-84-4

ISBN-13: 978-9956-552-84-9 ©Leah Jerop Komen 2021 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical or electronic, including photocopying and recording, or be stored in any information storage or retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher

Acknowledgments I give gratitude to Professor Gerard Goggin of Nanyang Technological University and Professor Francis Nyamnjoh of the University of Cape Town for inspiring me to write this book. Secondly, I thank my lead supervisor, Professor Tony David Sampson, of the University of East London, for walking with me through the doctoral journey. I also thank Dr. Marian Hepburn of the London Metropolitan University and Dr. Abel Ugba of the University of Leeds for additional guidance. I also make special mention of the Ada journal’s editorial team for their input in the publication of my article, ‘My Mobile, my Life: Deconstructing Development (Maendeleo) and Gender Narratives among the Marakwet in Kenya,’ parts of which are reflected in this book. To Professor Audrey Gadzepo, Leslie Steeves, and Paula Gardner, many thanks for putting your footprints in my earlier work. A word of immense gratitude to Professor Rich Ling for doing me the honour of writing a Foreword to this book. Gratitude goes to my parents and siblings for their love and encouragement, and my husband David and sons Emmanuel and Enoch, for their love, support, and patience during my academic sojourn in London. I also thank my editor, Dr. Theophilus Ejorh, a man of many talents, for his professionalism. Finally, I bless the Almighty God for the gift of life, good health, and mercies.

Table of Contents Acknowledgements .............................................................. iii Foreword by Rich Ling ........................................................ vii Preface .................................................................................. xiii Book Summary ..................................................................... xv Chapter 1: Introduction ........................................................ 1 Chapter 2: Conceptualising Development and Mobile Telephony ......................................................... 9 Conceptualising Development ..................................................... 9 Maendeleo ....................................................................................... 14 Maendeleo and Power ................................................................... 18 Chapter 3: Theories of Techno-social Transformation and Development....................................... 23 Adoption of New Technologies .................................................. 24 Impact of Determinist Theories .................................................. 28 Information Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D) .................................................................29 The Social Consequences of Mobile Telephony (Social Determinism) ..................................................................... 32 Use and Domestication of Technologies Theories...................36 Chapter 4: The Assemblage Theory .................................... 41 Development of the Assemblage Theory...................................41 Co-presence and Mobile Phone Sharing .................................... 44 Roles.................................................................................................46 Processes ......................................................................................... 46 Emergence ...................................................................................... 47 Two Models of Emergence .......................................................... 48 Mobile Telephony as a Techno-social Assemblage ..................49 Time and Space Re-definition ...................................................... 52 Power and Gender Relations ....................................................... 54 Critique of the Assemblage Theory............................................. 57 Chapter 5: Methodological Concerns .................................. 59 Historical Underpinnings of Ethnography.................................59 Applying Ethnography in the Study

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of Communication Technologies ................................................ 61 Methods........................................................................................... 69 Research Design............................................................................. 73 Participants...................................................................................... 75 Procedure ........................................................................................ 75 Drawbacks of Ethnographic Interviewing .................................77 Material ............................................................................................ 77 Ethical Considerations .................................................................. 78 Thematic Analysis of Data ........................................................... 79 Data Validity ................................................................................... 81 Challenges ....................................................................................... 81 Chapter 6: Mobile Assemblages and Co-presence .............. 85 Location and Relationship as Markers of Co-presence............85 Time and Space Re-definition ...................................................... 91 Power, Gender and Mobile Phone Assemblage........................103 Mobile Phone Sharing Assemblage ............................................. 112 Trust and Mischief Assemblage ................................................... 123 A Recap ........................................................................................... 126 Chapter 7: Cases of Maendeleo............................................ 129 Social Gatherings (Barazas) .......................................................... 129 Nature of the Barazas.................................................................... 131 The Case of M-PESA.................................................................... 134 The Historical Context of Money Transfer ...............................135 Studies on Mobile Money ............................................................. 137 Mobile Banking and Mobile Commerce..................................... 140 M-PESA as an Assemblage .......................................................... 142 The Processes of M-PESA as an Assemblage ...........................145 M-PESA as Possibility Space ....................................................... 146 M-PESA: A Transformative Model?........................................... 148 M-PESA and Micro/Macro Level Discourse ............................151 Chapter 8: Conclusion .......................................................... 155 Maendelo: A Radical and Inclusive Model of Social Change.................................................................................. 156 A Recap of Outcomes................................................................... 163 Final Word and Areas of Further Studies ..................................169 Bibliography ......................................................................... 171

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Foreword Rich Ling Professor of Media Technology Nanyang Technological University, Singapore In her bookMobile Assemblages and Maendeleo in Rural Kenya, Leah Komen takes the reader by the hand and explores the use of mobile communication in rural Kenya. She is a scholar who is uniquely qualified to be our guide as she is well-grounded in the local context and she has the insight with which to understand mobile communications effect on local lives. The book provides an ethnographic examination of how mobile communication has transformed and developed (she uses the Swahili wordmaendeleo) the lives of women in Marakwet, Kenya. Along the way, she provides us with an overview of different and perhaps unexpected, trajectories. Komen sees both the advantages and the drawbacks of adopting mobile communication. She documents how the device eases the organization of everyday activities, i.e., calling ahead to organize meetings, dealing with emergencies, etc. At the same time, Komen notes that users are grappling with the negative sides of use (e.g., phubbing). At the broadest level, Komen reminds us that mobile communication is not a magic technology that will modernize life in rural Kenya. The layering of cultural practice, gender and power relations mean that while the device will change some dimensions of life there is also a stability to the local culture. Komen positions herself as a “halfie” when it comes to the study of mobile communication, i.e., she is halfway an insider in Marakwet, but also halfway an outsider who has been educated in the UK. Thus, she is cognizant of having both the insider’s tacit understanding of the context, and yet also has the insight that comes from being an outsider. There is obviously an irreducible tension in this. Regardless, her life story helps the reader to understand her unique viewpoint. Komen draws on the assemblage perspective to examine the use of mobile communication. This approach has echoes of what Goffman’s early work would have called a situation; and his later work would have called a frame. There is the idea in an assemblage that the researcher does not reduce the analysis to either a micro or

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a macro level. There is a focus on both the whole and its parts. This approach is used to illuminate how the introduction of mobile communication is not necessarily a magic solution to global poverty. Rather, the effects of the technology need to be seen in the wider context. The device will perhaps empower people in some ways, but also constrain their position in other ways. There is not a single trajectory associated with the introduction of the technology, but there are a variety of issues that arise. Komen uses this approach to illuminate the network of relationships and the context in which they operate. Given that Komen has this goal, and given that she has the “halfie” perspective that allows her to see the situation both as an insider and as an outsider give her work a freshness. Unique cultural dimensions The rural Kenyan assemblages that Komen describes include the interaction between mobile telephony and the gendered practice of polygyny (one husband and many wives) is practiced; the use of a community horn to assemble residents to meetings and to alert them to emergencies such as cattle rustling by the neighboring tribe; and the culture of sharing resources. The way that mobile communication has played into these practices shows how the technology, and people’s use of it, is culturally plastic. Polygyny and gendered use of mobile communication Looking at polygyny, for example, Komen describes a public servant, Kiatu, who has three wives who lived in different locations. He found that having a mobile phone facilitated the coordination of his rather widespread family life. At the same time, he experienced his boss's calls as being oppressive. Thus, in the same person, we see how mobile telephony plays into both the locally unique (management of three families) and the globally common (suffering the demands of the pushy boss). The issue of polygyny brings the focus to the gendered use of mobile communication. Many different development projects have asserted the relationship between women’s ownership of mobile telephony with empowerment, poverty reduction, etc. Komen reports that some of the women reported empowerment in some cases, but that it was a mixed picture for these women.

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Gendered power relationships are also seen in teen’s use of the mobile phone for social networking and to check with schoolmates. In these activities boys are granted more leeway since girls, it is felt, are more vulnerable to sexual predation. Thus, gendered stereotypes are rendered through the lens of mobile telephony. In a countervailing case, Komen documents how mobile communication has facilitated women’s organization of resistance to genital mutilation. In addition, she describes how the use of mobile communication as a banking platform (specifically via M-Pesa), rearranges gendered relationships. It provides the women with the opportunity to save money and it is not immediately accessible by their partners. Komen, however, is careful to note that the simple ability to save money is not necessarily the same as the broader visions of international development. It provides women with resources. However, they also continue their lives in a patriarchal society, and all that this implies. Thus, there are different, and often conflicting gendered aspects to the ownership and use of mobile communication. Social coordination using the community horn Another unique feature of Marakwet described by Komen is the use of a community horn (an animal horn formed into a sounding device) to summon and organize residents for meetings and ceremonies. It is also used to alert residents in the case of cattle rustling and pest infestations. The mobile phone has played a supplementary role in this tradition since it is possible to contact people who are beyond the auditory boundary of the community horn. It is interesting to note that the use of the community horn to gather people harkens back to the use of church and municipal bells in medieval Europe. In both cases, an audible signal is used for social coordination. For example, in medieval Florence, there were bells marking the start of religious ceremonies, the opening/closing of the markets and city gates, the assembling of councils, etc. Manually rung bells evolved into mechanical driven timekeeping devices that eventually gave us the abstracted notion of clock time (i.e., the time- keeping mechanism rang a bell at a specific time). Mechanical timekeeping was progressively personalized with the development of

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