ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the continuum that stretches between two 'uncanny' objects: the wall and the mobile phone. The wall is an apparently trivial object, and one long neglected by social theory. The impact of governmental diffusion, together with the capillarization and infiltration of power devices at every scale, entail a concurrent multiplication of walls and wall-like artefacts. The general category wall includes, in fact, a wide and increasingly diversified set of separating artefacts, such as barriers, fences, gates, parapets, wire and so on, each of which is endowed with its own specific boundary-making features. Just like a sociological analytic of walls, the conceptual repertoire for the sociological study of mobile communication should include at least a media ecology, an urban ecology and an ecology of attentions. An ecological perspective does not prevent a focus on power relations in that concepts like control and freedom of movement can themselves be interpreted as ecological concepts.
