Mobilizing Place: Conceptual Currents and Controversies

Sometime in late 2010, the number of mobile cellular subscriptions worldwide exceeded the five billion mark, more than doubling since 2005. As the International Telecommunications Union has noted, mobile services are now available to over 90 percent of the world’s population, including some 80 percent of the population living in rural areas.4 Of course, such aggregate figures belie important aspects of actual access, consumption, and use of these technologies-especially of the myriad applications, functions, and meanings that comprise them. Nonetheless, there is abundant evidence of the global growth and ubiquity of mobile technologies.