Mobile telephony, mediation, and gender in rural India

Abstract

This article aims to develop the understanding of new media and social change by examining how mobile phones mediate kinship and gender in rural India. I provide a nuanced picture of the contested nature of kinship and gender in the village based on long-term fieldwork in order to explore how mobile phones mediate relationships and ongoing processes of social change. The article illustrates how the physical qualities of phones help strengthen the multiplicity of discourses by mediating relationships and contributing to the multiplicity of speech contexts. Mobile phone use has been encouraged and motivated by kinship relationships and the use of mobile phones has, in turn, transformed these relationships by helping to create new contexts for speech and action. However, instead of the drastic improvements or changes, for instance in economic power relationships, the positive impacts of women's phone use appear subtle and ambiguous: most calls are about the slight redefinition of the home boundaries.

Keywords:

• mobile phones
• gender
• rural India
• kinship
• South Asia

Notes

1 The survey covered respondents from the following villages: Dhengasole, Satmouli, Ghugimura, Lego, Chatramore, Parairy, Chandabila, and Pamua.

2 This article also draws from my earlier work in Janta. I lived in the village for 10 months in 1999–2000 and returned to Bankura for 4 more months of fieldwork in 2003 and 2004. My earlier research in Janta focused on gender, politics, and exchange relationships (Tenhunen 2003, 2008a, 2008b, 2011). The bulk of the earlier materials consists of 76 taped interviews with villagers and a complete household census of the village, but I also gathered many of my insights into village life through observation, participant observation, and chatting.

3 Tenhunen (2011) focuses on the use of mobile communication in politics in rural West Bengal.

4 However, the survey is not statistically representative of the Bankura region.

5 Survey did not include calls for marriage arrangements because it was not carried out during the marriage season. I, however, had the chance to observe calls for marriage arrangements in the village during the marriage season.