ABSTRACT
Link-up is becoming a central value and imperative in its own right. This is one of the most significant arenas in which the cell phone has become appropriated to fit within a well-established feature of Caribbean communication. Link-up calls dominate most of the phone usage by low-income individuals. The characteristic of link-up is that it consists of making a large number of very short calls, by which an individual not only accumulates a list of numbers but keeps these lists constantly active, with a high proportion of names called every couple of weeks. The evidence that link-up may lead to more extensive usage of a relationship when the need arises does not mean that this is simply a functional response to need. Link-up has become the foundation to communication as a form of networking. Link-up looks like a kind of minimal form of sociality, the very opposite of childcare or long-term relationships based on a dense web of connectivity.
