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Mobile Phone Communication in the Mobile Margins of Africa: The ‘Communication Revolution’ Evaluated from Below

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The Palgrave Handbook of Media and Communication Research in Africa

Abstract

By now the mobile phone has become an everyday device on the African continent. Even Africans who do not possess a handset themselves are familiar with its existence and may refer to mobile telephony in their daily conversations. Yet it was only in the 1990s that the first African cities acquired mobile phone connections, and only about ten years later that mobile telephony became possible in many rural areas.

Acknowledgements

This chapter is published in the framework of the Mobile Africa Revisited programme that was funded by WOTRO, The Netherlands W01.65.310.00.

For more information: http://mobileafricarevisited.wordpress.com/.

We wish to thank all team members of the Mobile Africa Revisited Programme.

Programme coordinators: Mirjam de Bruijn, Inge Brinkman and Francis B. Nyamnjoh; Case-studies (carried out by PhD, MA candidates and post-doctoral researchers): central Mali, Central Chad, south-east Angola, North Angola, anglophone West Cameroon, Casamance in Senegal, migrants in Cape Town (South Africa), and various locations in Sudan/South Sudan. The programme was sponsored by Wotro, The Netherlands (W 01.67.2007.014). More information: www.mobileafricarevisited.wordpress.com.

Interview held in Rundu, Namibia, 2011, with an elderly woman. ‘The first and the second independence’ refers to 1975 (when Angola became independent) and 1992 (when elections were held during a peaceful period). Jonas Savimbi was the long leader of the opposition movement UNITA in Angola. He was killed in combat in 2002, shortly after which peace agreements were signed (Cf. Brinkman & Alessi, 2009).

Interview held in Rundu, Namibia, December 2010, with a young man of Angolan descent, born in 1989.

Interview in Rundu, Namibia, December 2010, with a woman of Angolan descent, born in 1978.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Programme coordinators: Mirjam de Bruijn, Inge Brinkman and Francis B. Nyamnjoh; case-studies (carried out by PhD, MA candidates and post-doctoral researchers): central Mali, Central Chad, south-east Angola, North Angola, anglophone West Cameroon, Casamance in Senegal, migrants in Cape Town (South Africa), and various locations in Sudan/South Sudan. The programme was sponsored by Wotro, The Netherlands (W 01.67.2007.014). More information: www.mobileafricarevisited.wordpress.com

  2. 2.

    Interview held in Rundu, Namibia, 2011, with an elderly woman. ‘The first and the second independence’ refers to 1975 (when Angola became independent) and 1992 (when elections were held during a peaceful period). Jonas Savimbi was the long leader of the opposition movement UNITA in Angola. He was killed in combat in 2002, shortly after which peace agreements were signed (Cf. Brinkman & Alessi, 2009).

  3. 3.

    Interview held in Rundu, Namibia, December 2010, with a young man of Angolan descent, born in 1989.

  4. 4.

    Interview in Rundu, Namibia, December 2010, with a woman of Angolan descent, born in 1978.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Leiden University, Leiden, Netherlands

    Mirjam de Bruijn

  2. African Studies Centre Leiden (ASCL), Leiden, Netherlands

    Mirjam de Bruijn

  3. Department of African Languages and Cultures, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium

    Inge Brinkman

Authors
  1. Mirjam de Bruijn
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  2. Inge Brinkman
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

    Bruce Mutsvairo

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de Bruijn, M., Brinkman, I. (2018). Mobile Phone Communication in the Mobile Margins of Africa: The ‘Communication Revolution’ Evaluated from Below. In: Mutsvairo, B. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Media and Communication Research in Africa. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70443-2_13

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