Linguistic and Material Intimacies of Cell Phones

Joshua A. Bell is a cultural anthropologist and Curator of Globalization at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History, USA. Joel C. Kuipers is professor of Anthropology and International Affairs at the George Washington University, USA.

• Introduction: Linguistic and Material Intimacies of Cell Phone Communication Origins 1. The Slow Road to Tartarus: Technological Fetishism, Materiality, and the Trafficking in “Conflict Minerals” in the Eastern DR Congo 2. The role of mobile phones in the mediation of border crossings: A study of Haiti and the Dominican Republic 3. Bridges to Cash’: Channelling Agency in Mobile Money 4. Medialects in the Creation of Mayan Peer Cultures: Romantic Texting as a New Literacy Practice 5. Phone-made Poiesis: Towards an Ethnography of Call and Response 6. Technologically Mediated Sociality: Negotiating Culture, Communication, and Access 7. Safety, Sensemaking and Solidarity: Mobile Communication in the Immediate Aftermath of the July 22, 2011 Oslo Bombing 8. Piracy, Cloning, and Criminal Cats: The Discomforts of Cellularity in Brazil 9. Curating Visual Experiences through Mobile Phones 10. Intimate Materialities in Cell Phone Repair: Performance, Anxiety and Trust in DC Repair Shops 11. Cell Phone Antinomies: A Commentary