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In this paper we explore development, gender and technology through a focus on mobile phones and examples of their everyday use by rural women in India. We introduce ways in which technologies might be thought about in terms of “meaningful mobilities” by discussing attachments, structures of labour, agency and specifically how mobiles are an active agent in complex and evolving gendered relationships.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank DDS and SEWA for collaborating with us in our research, and especially all of the women for their generous welcome, their time, and sharing their experiences with us; Professor Pavarala of the University of Hyderabad; colleagues Kiran MS and Tripta Chandola; all have helped to inform the ideas explored in this paper, although all shortcomings are our own. We would like to also thank Intel Corporation for contributing to funding the research.
Notes
1. Three-year project (2007–2010) “Moving Content: Creative Engagement in Marginal Spaces,” funded by Intel and led by Jo Tacchi and Jerry Watkins in collaboration with Kathi R. Kitner, Jay Melican and Sue Faulkner from Intel. We worked with Research Coordinator and fieldworker Kiran MS, and fieldworker Tripta Chandola. We conducted three case studies, including the two reported upon here.
2. These two follow on projects were “Technologies of Attachments” and “Smartphones and Social Participation” funded by Intel. Jo Tacchi and Kate Crawford collaborated with Kathi R. Kitner, we worked with Kiran MS, and Tripta Chandola in India.
3. The average daily wage for rural women's casual labour is 86 rupees, according to official figures from India's Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (2012). In Gujarat the average wage is closer to 83 rupees (TNN 2011). Daily wage workers, by definition, have unreliable work and income.