colloquium /Genevieve Bell

The Age of the Thumb: An Ethnographic Account of Cell Phones in Asia

In June of 2002, Malaysian newsstands carried the latest issue of "Mobile Stuff" -- a magazine geared toward Malaysia's growing population of mobile phone subscribers. On the cover, two young Malay men in clothing that suggests more LA hood and less KL suburbs, hold out their mobile phones to the camera beneath the banner headline "Real Men Uses SMS." Six months later, billboards in Shanghai carried the image of a woman's shapely calves and ankles, bound with black patent leather ankle straps; positioned beneath one strap is her mobile phone. Beyond their utility as a technology of information exchange, mobile phones it appears have inserted themselves into the cultural fabric of societies across the world. Using comparative cases from Asia, I will explore how mobile phones, and their various accoutrements, have become key symbolic markers of cultural practices, gender and religious identities.

The cell phone, like many other information and communication technologies (ICTs) has rapidly proliferated around the world. However, the ways in which the cell phone has been deployed and consumed are subject to a great deal of local variation. Making sense of the different ways that cell phones are articulating with daily life provides an important perspective on the ways in which cultural patterns affect technology use. In particular, I examine the conflicts and collusions between multinational corporations, marketing groups, and situated users in the establishment of mobile phones as objects of fetish for the Asian "new rich." In the end, the essay argues that mobile phones, rather than facilitating an idealized universal communication, actually contribute to the re-inscription of local particularity and cultural difference as dimensions of a larger political economy of value.

Bio

Genevieve Bell is the Director of User Research Experience in Intel's Digital Home Platform. This group is focused on gaining a better understanding of daily life in homes all over the world, and using that knowledge to influence platform directions, product offerings, investment decisions and strategic planning. Bell's team is pioneering new forms of multi-sited ethnographic inquiry (with core competencies in design research and ethnographic film making), and experimenting with different kinds of data and knowledge representation.