ABSTRACT
Evaluating a consumer good is always a relative process. Being one of the few people to own a possession is very different from owning a nearly ubiquitous possession. Jamaica moved with incredible speed from a situation where possession of a cell phone placed one in the vanguard of consumption, to the current view that the lack of a phone marks an individual as particularly deficient. Schoolchildren are the most expressive in terms of their devotion to the phone as a possession that expresses their status amongst peers. For most low-income Jamaicans, however, the possession of a phone is the possession of a small multi-purpose tool that can become tantamount to an individualized communication technology centre. Most of the published literature on the cell phone concentrates on the specific contrast with landlines since in affluent countries the telephone itself was taken for granted for generations. As a result, the emphasis in this literature is on issues of perpetual access and mobility.
