Embedded and Re-purposed Technologies: Human Mobility Practices in Maasailand

Jessika Nilsson and Noel B. Salazar

Mobilities, 2017, vol. 12, issue 3, 445-461

Abstract: This article analyses how cultural patterns and social organization shape the meaning-making of human mobility and technology, and vice versa. We extend the definition of mobile technologies from engineered devices with portable quality to tools supporting peoples’ customary mobile practices. Specifically, we analyse the embodiment of contemporary mobile technologies into Maasai culture. Mobile practices have socio-cultural, economic and political meanings. The very fabric of the culture through which mobile practices are negotiated here is cattle. In focus are the mobilities shaping Maasailand. We argue that, rather than causing radical cultural change, novel mobile technologies are embedded, rationalized and re-purposed. Furthermore, a local-to-global cooperation on indigenous rights is facilitated.

Date: 2017
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DOI: 10.1080/17450101.2015.1099831

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