Big Change with Everyday Things: Is the Cell Phone Revolutionizing Africa?

The unequal reaches of globalization have often skipped over the African continent, but to each rule there are always a few exceptions. While the West utilizes Blackberries and iPhones to facilitate business deals, social networking and online banking, a new phenomenon appears to be emerging in Africa using much simpler technology. A Google search of "mobile phones in Africa" retrieves articles about the use of mobile technology to ensure honest elections, in the fight against HIV/AIDs, and even to improve the grain market. While computers and laptops have failed to reach the masses of Africans, cell phone penetration has grown unprecedentedly, with a rate of 30.4% of the population being mobile subscribers - 280.7 million people! In an interview done in September, economist Jeffrey Sachs calls the cell phone the single most transformative technology for development, citing its reach into isolated rural markets as its most striking feature (exemplified by the image above of the Maasai "warriors" in Kenya). Yet, while reading the multitude of articles on the beneficial uses of mobile phones, I couldn't help but wonder whether our unabated praise for the potential of the phone may be idealistic. I recalled living in a small village in Kenya called Kaloleni, where my host sister had a cell phone but our home had no electricity for her to recharge the battery. Every few days, she would take time off from working at the church to walk to another village and pay a family with electricity some of her hard-earned money, all to charge her phone. While this does not subtract from the potential benefits of the mobile phone, it does present some questions that may be being ignored in development field. To expand upon my own internal pondering, this week I roamed the blogosphere for African perspectives on the spread of the cell phone and then opened up communication by responding to their posts. My first comment is on a post on a blog called What an African Woman Thinks, whose author is a Kenyan woman. It highlights the rise of the "mobile phone revolution" and questions how the industry will evolve and mature. The second post I responded to is written by a white Kenyan whose blog, The White African, is quite popular in the world of technology in Africa. His article discusses Ushahidi, a program developed during the period of post-election violence in Kenya that allows citizens to send SMS messages and report localized crisis information. Last week the tool reached the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where the violent crisis is rapidly spinning out of control. I have included both of my comments below, but they can also be read in context by following the links.

"The Mobile Phone Revolution"

Comment:

I would like to thank you for commenting on a topic that is so timely and interesting. While studying abroad in Kenya last fall, I found the phenomenon of cell phone use and its accompanying culture fascinating. Indeed, the prevalence and affordability of phones across the country surprised me. In the past few weeks I have read articles on the indigenous, and often ingenious, uses of mobile technology sprouting up across the continent. Yet I wonder if, in your perspective, there are perhaps any downfalls to the potentially exciting "mobile revolution." In your article, you say that in the study of university students, all of them used "25% of their allocated spending funds on prepaid mobile airtime." If this is being repeated across the country, is it possible that Kenyans are spending crucial money on cellphones and airtime in order to keep up with this global culture rather than more urgent necessities? Especially as an African woman, do you find that the use of cell phones is really reaching the masses, or is it more concentrated than the numbers may have us believe? The idea of having to buy prepaid minutes is somewhat foreign in the United States, and took some getting use to while living in Kenya. I am glad you focused on this aspect of cell phone use, because I wonder if those in the development circles realize how much of an added cost this is creating and how that may limit the use of mobile phones for development projects around the continent. Without intending to subtract from the exciting potential of mobile technology in Africa, are these concerns valid enough to step back and take another look at?

"Ushahidi in the Congo (DRC)"

Comment:

Congratulations on the expansion of Ushahidi, though how unfortunate that it is needed in another crisis in the region. As a college student in the United States, I find the innovative uses of the cell phone all across Africa fascinating. When I first travelled to Kenya to study abroad, I had no idea how accessible and popular mobile phones would be, but quickly learned from the national "mobile culture" that has sprouted up amongst my Kenyan peers. Honestly, the prevalence of cell phones was a bit shocking, to the point that I met people who lived in complete poverty, sometimes without access to clean water or electricity, spending a large proportion of their income on mobile phones and prepaid minutes. Do you think that this is a phenomenon that we should worry about, or is it simply a shaky bridge that will inevitably lead to economic growth and development?

Another question I had is about the raw numbers of cell phone users in the areas that you work in. While mobile penetration has indeed surprised us all, there are still millions of Africans who do not own a phone. In areas of crisis, violence and poverty, do those who really are in need have access to phones to use Ushahidi? Further, even if they do have phones, do they have access to prepaid minutes in order to use the SMS feature? In conclusion, what I am asking if we should really believe the hype about mobile technology reaching the masses and single-handedly revolutionizing development on the continent?

Finally, I would like to thank you for all of the work you do, especially by focusing on all of the indigenous innovations popping up in Africa. Your blog goes a long way in dispelling many of the stereotypes of Africa that are so prevalent in mainstream Western media and that really make me cringe.

Preserving Diversity to Create Unity: Saving Indigenous Languages in Modern Times

The tolls of globalization have hit indigenous communities harder than any other. After surviving literal extermination at the hands of European colonialists, native cultures around the world now face a more symbolic eradication as the world shrinks smaller and increasingly homogeneous. National Geographic anthropologist Wade Davis sees the extinction of language as one of the most vital factors in the loss of culture and ethnicity: "language isn't just a body of vocabulary, it's a flash of the human spirit...the vehicle through which the soul of each culture comes into the material world." He says that every two weeks a language dies. Today, of the 6,000 linguistic groups still alive in the world, some are spoken by such minuscule numbers of people that less than 0.2% of the world's population speaks half of our languages. The loss of traditional communication is a slippery slope toward the assimilation, acculturation, and possibly eventual annihilation of indigenous peoples.

Ten years ago, the phenomenon of language loss was largely regarded as an inevitable consequence of modernization. Davis notes that traditional societies were often seen as failed attempts at modernity, best to be left in history. The threats to local languages arise from discrimination by government and majority populations, which led indigenous citizens - especially the younger members - to choose mainstream assimilation in order to advance socio-economically. This led to a generational divide where elders were no longer passing language down to their youth. But culture is not static, no matter how ancient it is, and in recent years a new force for the preservation of languages has emerged and strengthened. Largely through the widespread facility of telecommunication, indigenous groups from around the world began to converse and realize that they face the same threats from Australia to Peru to North America. These commonalities have led to the unity amongst threatened communities and a global struggle to adapt technology to their reality. Today this movement has become full-force, and even the United Nations has taken notice by declaring 2008 the "International Year of Languages."

With this recognition that multi-lingualism is an important part of our society, many tools have emerged to preserve endangered languages. Using simple digital recording, local communities can record conversations, stories and songs to then send via e-mail or upload online. One of the biggest tasks in making the internet a more inclusive tool has been to translate browsers into minority languages. This has been especially important in Africa, where the inequality that has increased with globalization is so visible. By making the web more accessible, and therefore more democratic, education is improved by allowing more people to master basic computer skills which then spurs them to continue to enhance local language content, increasing the diversity of voices expressed online. This also has implications for traditional cultures that were historically held in low-esteem and seen as contrary to development. Enlace Quiche is an organization that is creating information communication technologies (ICTs) to train intercultural and bilingual educators in Guatemala. They have developed an online vocabulary in the local language, K'iche', and have found that when children use computers in their native language, "the lessons learned go far beyond mastering basic computer skills. Students are learning that their indigenous language and culture are a vital part of their society."

With the growth of esteem within native communities, the rising generation has sought out ways to merge their grandparents' traditions with the universal youth culture that they are surrounded by. One format that has lent itself with facility to indigenous youth is hip hop, which is all the more easily accessible and transmittable with new forms of global telecommunications on the web. In Africa, there was a period where hip hop thrived merely imitating American gangsta rap, using English slang and profanities. Today we see the emergence of hip hop that relates more to the realities of Africans, and with this the expanding use of local languages in the music. Often the fusion of native dialects with English and French creates wholly new vocabularies, which also has the effect of reviving and incorporating older, dying languages into modern society. In similar vein, Local Noise is a site funded by the Australian Research Council that focuses on Australian hip hop. They found that the storytelling aspects and multicultural roots of hip hop give it particular strength to be adapted to the aboriginal context. In "Indigenising Hip-Hop," one female MC talks about the ease in relating the four essential elements of hip hop to her Fijian traditions: DJing is like alali drumming; graffiti like cave painting; MCing is like her grandfather's public speaking around the kava bowl; and breakdancing is like traditional Fijian dance. Today there are numerous blogs, record labels, festivals and competitions dedicated to promoting native hip hop and cultural exchange. While often times the listeners cannot understand the language that the musician is rapping in, they comprehend the subject because they too have lived through such experiences.

As the International Year of Languages comes to a close, the evolving inclusiveness of the web and the capitalization of this trend by native communities is hopeful. While it remains to be seen if this will stem the disappearance of languages, the mere global concentration on preservation seems to be reversing the trend. With the rising recognition that encouraging the development of multi-cultural, multi-lingual citizens is beneficial for not only traditional communities but also for overall progress of the nation-state, the youngest generation around the world is in the perfect situation to pursue this potential. They no longer need to choose between modernization and the customs of their ancestors, between globalization and traditions. By beginning to view cultures as a dynamic, progressive entity we can promote preservation of endangered societies rather than leaving them to the history books.

As The World Watches On: Youth Participation in the US Elections

With less than 24 hours until the United States elects a new president and consequently ushers in a new era, scouring the blogosphere for posts about the election seemed logical. In the US, the youth vote has received an unprecedented amount of attention this year. Both optimists and pessimists have captured headlines predicting youth turn-out and their effect on the polls tomorrow. Candidates and get-out-the-vote organizations alike have fought to capture the hearts of young Americans using innovative forms of technology, media, and celebrity culture (as evidenced by the Vote or Die ad campaign, seen on the left featuring Paris Hilton). Yet historically the youngest segment of American voters has been the least likely to vote. At CIRCLE, a non-partisan research center focusing on civic engagement of young Americans, studies have found that the youth vote dropped steadily from 1972 to 2000. A surge in the 2004 elections still left less than 50% of young Americans actually voting, the lowest turn-out of any age group. With the world watching, a focus this election cycle has been how to get and keep young citizens engaged. This week I felt motivated to comment on a post that talks about a popular online video that can be personalized to show a fake post-election broadcast revealing the name of a single person whose failure to vote led to Senator John McCain’s victory by one vote. Featured on the New York Times political blog The Caucus, it stresses the great lengths groups have gone to urge American youth to vote and the prominence of the issue in national media.

Secondly, I used a site called Voices Without Votes which seeks to highlight conversations in the global blogosphere about the US election. There I found a post written by a young Brazilian journalist, Paula Góes, on Brazilian perspectives of the candidates. I found the juxtaposition between Brazil and the US particularly relevant because Brazil is one of a handful of countries that has a controversial compulsory voting process, where every literate citizen between the ages of 18 and 70 is required to vote. Although beyond the scope of this week's post, it is worth questioning whether compulsory voting in Brazil is a more effective way of engaging minority voters such as youth than the US system. At first glance it may seem to be so, but in Brazil it also makes it easier for corrupt politicians to buy apathetic citizens' votes and to make many resentful of the political process. Both Brazil and the United States are large, diverse nations facing a myriad of issues involving democratic inclusion of minority groups. They are also becoming so interconnected that the importance this election will have on foreigners' everyday lives is clear. I have included my comments on both blog posts below, though you can also read then in context by following the links.

"Using the Blame Game to Get Out the Vote"

Comment:

Upon reading your article, my first reaction as a young American was sadness that being “humiliated” into voting is a successful technique! I can only imagine how many young Iraqis or Mexican citizens would die to have a say in the election of the American president, yet the youngest age-group of voters in the US is the most historically apathetic. But as I continued down your post, my optimism (and perhaps idealism) returned and I began to take pride in all of the innovative ways young people are being targeted in election campaigns. While researching youth using technology around the world for a university project, I have been inspired by the different ways my generation is becoming socially active. In this election alone young people are using text-messages, online video-conferences, Facebook and a variety of other tools to get involved. A survey done at the Harvard Institute of Politics this fall even found that over two-thirds of 18-24 year olds see political engagement as an effective way of solving our nation’s problems.

I was also curious about your opinion on the overall effect these turn-out efforts will have. Looking back to the 2004 elections, all of the talk about youth registering in droves ended up having a very small effect on the presidential outcome. Do you think that the new era of interactive, individualized technology will have a more positive effect on the numbers of youth voters this time around? You cite in your post that young people are statistically unlikely to go to the polls. Does this stem from historically low levels of out-reach to the young American population or is it a more systematic issue emanating from the overall structure of our election processes? One website I recently came across, WhyTuesday.org questions why our nation lags behind almost all others in voter-turnout and what practical solutions we can take to change the act of voting from a right to an imperative. In other words, will these innovative, get-out-the-vote tools have any effect on voter participation without reforming the current system? Thank you for your time, and I would also like to thank you for your focus on the benefits that technology can have when put to positive youth and for creating avenues for dialogue on the youth vote this election cycle.

"Obama or McCain - Who is Better (Or Less Bad) For Brazil?"

Comment:

I wanted to write and thank you for all of your interesting posts. I spent a semester studying abroad in Brazil this spring and found it fascinating to talk to my Brazilian friends about the contentious primary race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Now that I am home, it is nice to read your posts and stay in touch with the Brazilian perspective as the election nears. It is interesting that you open your post by saying that this is the first US election where Brazilians clearly see issues close to their heart at stake. Do you think this is due to an increasing interconnectedness arising from globalization, or perhaps the severity of problems we are facing in present-day? I indeed often heard my peers in Salvador say that the rest of the world should be able to vote for the American president because what he does so affects other nations, which I always found interesting.

One thing that interests me is to compare is youth participation in the US and Brazil. In the United States, my generation has the lowest turn-out rates of any age group. In Brazil this problem seems to be solved by the compulsory voting system, but while there I found that many expressed resentment at being forced to vote. While compulsory voting should, in theory, increase minority participation in Brazilian politics, it seemed as though the system remains very elitist and white, not very different from politics in the US. From an outsider’s perspective looking in to the American system, how do you think we could get more young people involved? Would a compulsory voting system help the issue or simply mask youth apathy?

One last comment I would like to make is on the popularity of Barack Obama in Brazil (see the Brazilian Obama ad on the right). In a past post, “Will the Elections End up In Another Bradley Effect,” you discuss the racial factor of Barack Obama. The US and Brazil both have a deep racial history, though this is caused by different historical factors that today manifest quite differently. It is interesting that so many Brazilians support Barack Obama (I also saw his face splashed across billboards all over Brazil), when there are so few Afro-Brazilian politicians in relation to their large percentage of the population. Do you think the popularity of Obama in Brazil relates to evolving racial ideals held by the rising generation? Many in the US contribute this to Obama’s popularity amongst the young generation; could it be that Brazilian and American youth are beginning to look more alike as globalization brings us closer together?