Message in a Mobile : Mixed-Messages, Tales of Missing and Mobile Communities at the University of Khartoum

  • This detailed, meticulous ethnographic study on mobile phone use among Nuba students at the University of Khartoum in Sudan, distinguishes itself from other studies by taking a focused look at the linguistic content of mobile phone interactions via text-messaging, portraying it as a site for the expression of personalized and affective language. While men and women appear to be equally aggressive consumers and producers of text-message poetry, women are formally discouraged in using the phone for relations that go beyond the publicly acceptable norms of 'keeping in touch' and making arrangements. Nonetheless, women use it for such purposes and many manage it discreetly, showing how this technology can serve to subvert discursive norms on gender and marriage. The mobile phone in Sudan enhances individual autonomy over interactions, making possible the extension and creation of social spaces. It simultaneously enlarges private space and trespasses into public space. Poetic themes and language, previously limited to elite producers - those both more literate and who had control over mass media domains, radio and newspapers - are exposed to anonymous recipients, who draw from, copy or forward them in continuous circulation, thereby staking a claim in the public sphere. Similarly, the mobile phone serves as a site for the exercise of several layers of identity in negotiation, and reflects or creates alternative identities and the contestation of existing discourses, communities in physical space and notions of belonging.

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Metadaten
Author:Siri Lamoureaux
URN:urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-602933
ISBN:9956-726-45-1
ISBN:978-9956-726-45-5
Publisher:Langaa RPCIG
Place of publication:Bamenda, Cameroon
Document Type:Book
Language:English
Year of Completion:2011
Year of first Publication:2011
Publishing Institution:Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian Senckenberg
Release Date:2021/04/30
Page Number:196
HeBIS-PPN:478269196
Sammlungen:Afrika südlich der Sahara
Afrika südlich der Sahara / Paket Afrikanistik
Licence (German):License LogoFID Afrikastudien