Mobile media, gender, and power in rural India
Tenhunen, S. (2019). Mobile media, gender, and power in rural India. Human Technology, 15 (2), 181-201. doi:10.17011/ht/urn.201906123155
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Date
2019Copyright
© 2019 Sirpa Tenhunen and the Open Science Centre, University of Jyväskylä
This article traces the diffuse connections between mobility and power by
exploring how mobile phone use contributed to gendered power relations in rural India. It
is based on ethnographic fieldwork on the use of mobile phones, conducted periodically
between 2005 and 2013 in the village of Janta in West Bengal, India, and compared to earlier
fieldwork in Janta, before the village had any phone system. Analysis of the increased
mobility reveals how mobile phone use emerges within interconnected, changing fields of
power. The political sphere earlier perceived as predominantly local was replaced by
translocal political practices characterized by increasing mobility. Although new political
practices eroded women’s political participation in the village, mobile phone use made
possible new forms of agency for women. The article contributes to the understanding of the
unanticipated ways mobility and new media contribute to power and politics.
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Jyväskylän YliopistoISSN Search the Publication Forum
1795-6889Keywords
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