Blurring Livelihoods and Lives The Social Uses of Mobile Phones and Socioeconomic Development data sheet 1709 Views
Abstract:
This paper focuses on how this intermingling of lives and livelihoods, as mediated
by the mobile phone, figures into the micro-processes of economic development.
It neither broadly elaborates the core contributions of mobile phone use to
economic development (synchronizing prices, expanding markets, reducing transport
costs, etc.), nor suggests that one kind of mobile use is more important than
another. Instead, it argues simply for a perspective on work and on livelihoods that
is broad enough to account for (and perhaps even take advantage of) the social
processes surrounding these activities. Analysts, policymakers, and technologists
interested in the application of Mobiles for Development (M4D) should not
ignore the way mobiles blur livelihoods and lives; the developmental and nondevelopmental uses of the mobile are not in competition, nor are they always distinguishable.
Instead, the uses of mobiles for developmental and non-developmental
purposes are often interrelated and sometimes mutually reinforcing. The social
functions of the mobile (in matters of connection and self-expression) are helping
drive its widespread adoption, and these same functions inform the very behaviors
that make the mobile a tool for economic development.