Mirjam de Bruijn

'We cannot imagine life now without a mobile phone' is a frequent comment when Africans are asked about mobile phones. They have become part and parcel of the communication landscape in many urban and rural areas of Africa and the growth of mobile telephony is amazing: from 1 in 50 people being users in 2000 to 1 in 3 in 2008. Such growth is impressive but it does not even begin to tell us about the many ways in which mobile phones are being appropriated by Africans and how they are transforming or are being transformed by society in Africa. This volume ventures into such appropriation and mutual shaping. Rich in theoretical innovation and empirical substantiation, it brings together reflections on developments around the mobile phone by scholars of six African countries (Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ghana, Mali, Sudan and Tanzania) who explore the economic, social and cultural contexts in which the mobile phone is being adopted, adapted and harnessed by mobile Africa.

The New Talking Drums of Everyday Africa

Mobile Phones: The New Talking Drums of Everyday Africa

Jon Abbink

This book offers a series of new studies on the dynamics of political and legal culture as well as of conflict management in contemporary Africa, taking inspiration from and honoring the scholarly contributions and impact of Prof. Gerti Hesseling (1946-2009) in African Studies.

Mediating Conflict and Reshaping the State

Land, Law and Politics in Africa

Sub-Saharan Africa has seen a significant rise in terrorist acts and radicalized youth since the appearance of Boko Haram in 2009 and the fall of Libya in 2012. In this book we search for the deeper layers of radicalization in Sub-Saharan Africa, which is situated in a larger global tendency.

Hidden Messages of Social Change

Biographies of Radicalization

Victor Azarya

Anneke Breedveld

Han van Dijk

This collection of papers on the Fulbe is an up-to-date and comprehensive overview of social change in one of the most fascinating group of pastoralists in Africa. Opens new perspectives on this group.

Fulbe Societies Confronting Change in West Africa

Pastoralists under Pressure?

Inge Brinkman

Francis Nyamnjoh

Marginality does not mean isolation. In Africa where people are permanently on the move in search, inter alia, of a 'better elsewhere', marginality means disconnection to obvious possibilities and the invisibility of the myriad connections that make life possible for the ordinarily sidestepped. This book is about the workings of networks of the mobile in Africa, a continent usually associated with the 'global shadows' of the world. How do changes in the possibilities for communication, with the recent hype of mobile technology, influence the social and economic dynamics in Africa's mobile margins? To what extent is the freedom associated with new Information and Communication Technologies reality or disillusion for people dwelling in the margins? Are ordinary Africans increasingly Side@Ways? How social are these emergent Side@Ways? Contributions to answering these and related questions are harvested from ethnographic insights by team members of the WOTRO funded 'Mobile Africa revisited' research programme hosted by the African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands.

Mobile Margins and the Dynamics of Communication in Africa

Side@Ways: Mobile Margins and the Dynamics of Communication in Africa

Klaas van Walraven

Rethinking Resistance analyzes revolts from the nineteenth century and early colonial Africa, post-colonial rebellions and recent conflicts in African history by reinterpreting resistance studies in the light of current scholarly thought and linking them to new conceptual perspectives on the changing nature of violence.

Revolt and Violence in African History

Rethinking Resistance

Rijk van Dijk

Dick Foeken

This anthology deals with the complexity, variety and experience of all the forms of mobility we witness today in Sub-Saharan Africa. Three sets of issues are being discussed. This book intends to turn the whole notion of mobility as a supposedly rupturing phenomenon on its head, emphasizing that rather through travelling connections are established and continuity is experienced. We are challenged to delve into the traveller's mind, to think and follow their multi-spatial livelihoods and to explore what it means to people if they move in a variety of spaces.

Changing Patterns of Movement in Africa and Beyond

Mobile Africa

The rapid increase in adoption of modern 'connective' technologies like the mobile phone has reshaped the social landscape of Africa. This book examines the myriad possibilities that the post-global moment offers African societies to develop and to relate, offering profound new insights into the processes of globalization.

Mirjam de Bruijn

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