Abstract

It is commonplace to remark on the extraordinary development and diffusion of the mobile phone and associated technologies. From its commercial introduction in the late 1970s and early 1980s, mobile phone subscriptions will have exceeded seven billion at the time of publishing this book. While its global impact is undeniable, in each location we see how the mobile phone shapes, and is shaped by, the everyday. In other words, as global as the mobile phone is, it is also local upon every level. Far from even in its uptake, the mobile phone reflects and amplifies existing inequalities while also providing new avenues for expression and agency. Like many cultural goods, its access, use, and significance are conditioned by social stratification, disparity of wealth and income, and entrenched dynamics of inequality. Yet mobiles have found their way into the hands, pockets, purses, bags, clothes, and lives of a wide range of societies, ages, cultures, and places.