Abstract
This chapter addresses the kinds of questions author began pondering on that sea wall in the Dominican Republic. It is concerned with the claims about the universalizing properties of mobile phones and the more anthropologically inspired work on the cultural specificity of mobile phone use, and the tensions around the everyday designs that emerge when looking at ways in which people, bodies and worlds become engaged in relationships with mobile phones. The chapter draws upon long-term ethnographic research in Jamaica beginning in 1999 and a shorter, collaborative engagement with Erin Taylor working on the border of Haiti and the Dominican Republic over three years between 2010 and 2012. It reviews ways in which mobile phones enhance and work to illuminate various forms of intimacy. The chapter concludes by reflecting upon the relationships between mobile phones and their integration into the broader ecologies of design and pattern.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Digital Materialities: Design and Anthropology |
| Editors | Sarah Pink, Elisenda Ardèvol, Dèbora Lanzeni |
| Place of Publication | U.K. |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Academic |
| Pages | 159-174 |
| Number of pages | 16 |
| ISBN (Electronic) | 9781472592583 |
| ISBN (Print) | 9781472592569 |
| Publication status | Published - 2016 |