ABSTRACT
The integration of the cell phone in China, India and many countries in Africa raised urgent questions about the impact of the cell phone for development and poverty alleviation throughout much of the world. By 2003, there were already more cell phones in the world than landlines and in many European countries more than 75 per cent of the population were subscribers. This book evaluates the consequences of the cell phone for low-income populations through presenting an ethnography of the cell phone in Jamaica. Juxtaposing the literature on the global impact of the cell phone and the local precedent of specifically Jamaican communication provides the frame within which the enquiry can be set. As a result, the conclusion with regard to the literature on Jamaican communication is similar to that of the global use of the cell phone. In both cases one shall find evidence that is very different from what might have been predicted from these literatures.
