The Digitizing Family

An Ethnography of Melanesian Smartphones

Geoffrey Hobbis (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

XI, 225 Seiten

2020 | 1st ed. 2020
Springer International Publishing (Verlag)
978-3-030-34928-8 (ISBN)

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At once a digital ethnography of smartphones and a classically conceived village-based ethnography, this book relocates the study of digital technologies to rural Melanesia, with a focus on the Lau of Malaita, Soloman Islands. In this 'technography', Geoffrey Hobbis studies the materiality and functional attributes of smartphones and their object biographies-modes of acquisition, maintenance, uses, limitations and the problems specific to this region in adopting and adapting smartphones in everyday life. As he examines the various uses of smartphones, as both telephone and multimedia device, Hobbis also explores the social and cultural transformations, the hopes and uncertainties, with which they are associated. Ultimately, in bringing together a study of digital technologies with classical anthropological theory, The Digitizing Family develops a theory of smartphones as kinship technologies and supercompositional objects.

Geoffrey Hobbis is an Assistant Professor at the Centre for Media and Journalism Studies, University of Groningen, the Netherlands. Previously, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Centre de Recherche et de Documentation sur l'Océanie, France, and lectured at the University of British Columbia, Canada.

Chapter 1: Introduction: Digitizing the Melanesian Family.- Chapter 2: Methodological Notes.- Part I: The Many Lives and Deaths of the Melanesian Smartphone.- Chapter 3: A Sketch of Many Births, Lives and Deaths of Smartphones.-Chapter 4: A Digital Swiss Army Knife.- Part 2.-Chapter 5: Digitizing Social Networks.- Chapter 6: Telephonic Immorality and Uncertainty.- Part 3: MicroSD Culture and Digital Parenting.- Chapter 7: The Muvi Haos.- Chapter 8: The Babysitting Smartphone.- Part 4: Towards a Theory of Smartphones as Kinship Tools.- Chapter 9: The Sociotechnical System of Melanesian Smartphones.- Chapter 10: Conclusion: The Supercompositional Object.

Erscheinungsdatum	18.02.2020
Zusatzinfo	XI, 225 p. 22 illus., 21 illus. in color.
Verlagsort	Cham
Sprache	englisch
Maße	148 x 210 mm
Gewicht	542 g
Themenwelt	Sozialwissenschaften ► Ethnologie
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Kommunikation / Medien ► Medienwissenschaft
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie ► Mikrosoziologie
Schlagworte	anthropology of technology • digital anthropology • Indigenous and Aboriginal studies • kinship studies • material culture • Oceania • Pacific Studies
ISBN-10	3-030-34928-4 / 3030349284
ISBN-13	978-3-030-34928-8 / 9783030349288
Zustand	Neuware