A Mobile Phone Mobility Materiality and Everyday Swahili Trading Practices

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2010 17: 341Cultural GeographiesJulia Pfaff

A mobile phone: mobility, materiality and everyday Swahili trading practices

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A mobile phone: mobility,materiality and everyday

Swahili trading practices

Julia PfaffUniversity of Bayreuth, Germany

Abstract

This article engages with the recent literature on material culture, follow-the-thing geographies,

mobility and mobile communication technologies by linking these theoretical reflections to

ethnographic research in East Africa. Using the biography of a specific mobile phone as a windowthrough which to shed light on the spatial and cultural practices in which the object is embedded, itattempts to provide an insight into contemporary trading practices in a Swahili context. Presenting

phases in the life course of a particular mobile phone, it examines different ways of relating to,using, disposing of and acquiring mobile phones, illustrating how a phone is being appropriated andincorporated into the ways of life of many Swahili people and plays an important role in processes

of identification. While, on the one hand, grounding the often very generalized discussions ofmobile phone use in Africa in the biography of a specific object, on the other hand, the article triesto link its mobility to larger questions of cultural identity and meaning by showing how these are

constantly being negotiated and practiced in everyday trading practices.

Keywords

material culture, mobile communication technologies, mobility, object Biography, Swahili

Mobile phones and their cultural and spatial mobility

It is not just humans that have a memory and oral history, things too can tell us

something about their past and our possible future.1

Thousands of mobile phones, mobile-phone accessories, SIM cards, top-up vouchers ... In Aggrey,

one of the busy streets of Kariakoo, an area next to the city centre of Dar es Salaam, about a hun-

dred shops sell mobile phones and items connected to their usage and appropriation. Although

most of the shops are only a few square metres, they all have a glass cabinet at the front displaying

mobile phones, with one lying next to the other, different brands in different rows, arranged by

price or the length of time they have been on display. This road is full of mobile-phone shops offer-

ing a broad (if not complete) range of models that are available in stores all round the world today,

cultural geographies

17(3) 341357

The Author(s) 2010

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DOI: 10.1177/1474474010368606

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Corresponding author:Julia Pfaff, University of Bayreuth, Germany

Email: [email protected]

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342 cultural geographies 17(3)

from the latest Sony Ericsson design to the Motorola flip phone in all different colours and some

of the old and simple ones by Nokia and Siemens.

Looking at the collection in this small road in Kariakoo, one of the main business and most

popular shopping areas in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, it becomes obvious that thousands of processes

of acquisition and exchange are involved, stretching across space and time. As Hill2

points out,collections carry a multitude of meanings that are intimately linked to the biographies of the col-

lected objects hinting at the spatial and cultural dimensions of their existence. In this respect, I

argue that taking a closer look at the mobile phones on display opens up a window through which

to examine the spatial and cultural practices in which the objects are embedded, providing an

insight into contemporary trading practices in a Swahili context. Concentrating on the objects

mobility, I will therefore explore the ways in which mobile phones are being exchanged, appropri-

ated and incorporated into the ways of life of many Swahili people and are playing an important

role in everyday processes of identification.

Outlining central aspects of Swahili culture and identity, I will begin by highlighting the enor-

mous relevance of trade, historically as well as today. By pointing out the important role of mobilephones in contemporary Swahili trading practices, I argue that it is especially in and through the

engagement with the object itself, its diverse meanings and movements, that the cultural meaning

of trade becomes visible. Putting this in the context of recent debates on mobile phones in Africa

as well as cultural geographic research on material culture and mobility studies, I introduce some

conceptual and methodological ideas on researching object biographies and follow-the-thing

geographies. The article then returns to one of the shops in Aggrey, presenting phases in the life

course of a particular mobile phone on display to explore its meanings through different relations

and the ways in which it has been circulated and appropriated over a period of 18 months. In doing

so, I attempt to give a much-needed empirical account of the varying encounters between different

owners, users, traders and the mobile phone, and offer an insight into the ways in which its biogra-phy reflects everyday Swahili trading practices and how these are constantly being negotiated and

practised by focusing on the engagement with one of its central trade goods.

The Swahili as a merchant people

Although the trading history of the Swahili Corridor and Zanzibar in particular (with its two main

islands of Unguja and Pemba) is far more complex, the following briefly sketches some of the

central aspects of what I call an ideology of trade. Having controlled most of the intercontinental

commerce between the interior of Eastern and Southern Africa and the Gulf, the Indian subconti-

nent and Indonesia for more than a thousand years, the Swahili have long inhabited and fashionedtransnational spaces of trade.3People from Zanzibar are therefore often characterized (and charac-

terize themselves) as a seafaring and merchant people, nurtured by contact and it is, among other

things, their engagement in commercial practices that has essentially contributed to a Swahili cul-

ture and identity.4Trade in Zanzibar has been regarded for a long time as a guarantor of wealth, and

much of its success has been related to the familiar role of merchant adventurer. Flexibility and

mobility have played a crucial role in trade journeys along the coast and into the interior, and the

trading voyage has been neither a specialized nor a regulated business.5Under the Oman Empire,

Zanzibar was part of a network of ports held together by shared commercial interests. Recognizing

the importance of Zanzibar, it was Seyyid Said bin Sultan, the most active Omani trader of all, who

moved his capital to the island.

6

The traders enjoyed political power and economic supremacy andformed an aristocracy of merchants including religious leaders and learned men, effectively domi-

nating all aspects of life.7As Middleton8emphasizes, although the Swahili merchants view of

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Pfaff 343

their worlds never exactly mirrored the commercial and political actuality, ... it gave reason and

order to what they saw as their central position in world society as they knew it. It is difficult to

estimate the economic dimensions of the contemporary Zanzibari trading networks that are revital-

izing old routes and further elaborate them by the translocal connections of the diaspora.

Nevertheless, it is evident that their imaginary and ideological basis, which is especially relevantto the processes of identification, is still present.9Although specific translocal connections of

Zanzibar (particularly the one between Zanzibar and Oman) have been changing considerably over

the last decades and are constantly (re)negotiated, translocality more generally has remained at the

core of Swahili culture and identity. With trade having been the driving force in the establishment

and maintenance of translocal connections, until today the general idea is that, to be culturally and

economically successful, one has to engage in commerce, and that those who engage in trade also

become rich, not only financially but also by moving up the social hierarchy.10In this respect, trad-

ing practices are still recognized as a worthwhile activity, not only for the anticipated profit trade

brings but primarily to see oneself as a part of a society that is based to a large extent on this very

ideology.11

Almost all the young people I have spoken to claimed that whatever they might do toearn a living, they would also definitely engage in some kind of trading activity.12

Mobile phones are a primary material form in contemporary Swahili trading practices, both as

objects of exchange and as technologies of communication. They are of vital importance not only

as a trading good but also for organizing trading practices. Furthermore, as mobile phones have

come to play a crucial role in everyday life more generally (and are a great facilitator in the consti-

tution of translocal connections), they are not just anything but a good that is closely linked to the

traders processes of identification. They represent, therefore, an object through which to analyse

the ways in which economic and cultural practices are intertwined, and provide valuable material

to explore contemporary Swahili trading practices.

Researching mobile phones in Africa

Focusing on the everyday practices and meanings attached to the circulation and adoption of a

particular mobile phone across space and time, I present an account of mobile-phone biographies

in Africa. To date, very few studies have systematically considered the key factors of mobile ICT

use in developing countries using data collected directly from individual consumers.13There is

above all a lack of qualitative and ethnographic work on mobile-phone use in sub-Saharan Africa

and, as Castells et al.14point out, the specific ways mobile phones are used and distributed, espe-

cially among young people in Africa, are largely undocumented. For this reason, the section in their

bookMobile Communication and Societywhich deals with mobile phones in Africa is not onlyrather short but also repeatedly refers to the anecdotal nature of many of the assumptions. As they

put it,15some have argued that so far most stories about mobile phones in Africa are anecdotal,

everyone comes across an event or a situation in which he or she is struck by the omnipresence of

mobile phone advertisements, by different kinds of usage (phone sharing, etc.), but academic

debates on mobile phones in Africa only seem to start.

In line with one of the currently dominating strands of development research (especially in

anthropology but also in geography), much work focuses on the appropriation and adaptation of

technology in specific contexts.16In this respect, much attention has been paid to the variety of

mobile phone use, especially in demarcation to western ways of dealing with it, such as the rules

and meanings of beeping or flashing,

17

practices of credit or phone sharing,

18

ways of recharg-ing the phone, or magical practices related to its use.19In his article Cell Phones, Social Inequality

and Contemporary Culture in Nigeria, Smith20provides an important contribution by analyzing



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the social and cultural changes generated by the mass proliferation of mobile phones and the way

the spread of the technology has accentuated already prevalent cultural dynamics and intensified

perceptions and discontents about inequality in contemporary Nigeria. Considering mobile phones

not only as a catalyst for change but also as objects that shed light on important dimensions of long-

standing features of peoples social life and culture, he emphasizes the roles and meanings ofmobile phones for people in different situations.21In contrast to this more cultural interest, another

and certainly bigger strand of research concentrates on the possible impact of the mobile phone on

development exploring its economic and educational potential as well as the use of ICTs to access

knowledge and information about markets, political and health issues.22

Although in some African countries mobile phone penetration rates are still very low, in others

they hardly differ from rates in the west or due to very high growth rates will soon reach them.

Overall, also in parts of Africa, the mobile phone appears to have become an everyday object that

merges with people in a variety of ways.23While the complex agreements and the heterogeneous

engineering nesting in the space that we ordinary observers would [nevertheless] consistently

recognise as a mobile phone is frequently forgotten by its users, as Laurier24

argues, a mobilephone can range from being a designer plastic box with buttons to a battery-operated machine

or a rental agreement between Orange and the customer and much more. Instead of focusing on

the specificity and extraordinary nature of mobile phones in Africa, this article therefore wishes to

offer an insight into everyday and rather mundane relations between people and mobile phones by

examining the different ways of relating to, using, disposing of and acquiring mobile phones.

Asking how links are created, how they are maintained and why they fall apart is seen as a way of

exploring the identifications, practices and symbolizations arising from these manifold connec-

tions and how they open up a way to gain a better understanding of the mobile phone in contempo-

rary Swahili trading practices.

Mobility studies and material culture: focusing on travelling objects

Researching mobile phones in Africa also contributes to recent debates in the field of mobility stud-

ies. The mobility turn has come to be considered as a central turn in the social sciences within the

last few years.25In their article in 2006, Mimi Sheller and John Urry analyse the extensive engage-

ment with mobility as the formation of a new paradigm which is meant to help undermine the sed-

entarist notion of much of social science research and is understood as an attempt to account for

not only the quickening of liquidity within some realms but also the concomitant patterns of con-

centration that create zones of connectivity, centrality, and empowerment in some cases, and of

disconnection, social exclusion, and inaudibility in other cases.

26

Focusing on mobility as puremotion,27it is nevertheless striking that many studies still seem to assume that mobility is more

relevant to the western world than to the rest.28Whereas the western world is often character-

ized by masses of fast and ever moving bodies, people in developing countries are rather consid-

ered as being stuck in a place where time and space remain realconstraints in life. What is needed

instead is a sensitivity to mobility in different contexts by including actors that have so far hardly

been recognized in these debates on mobility and to look for mobility in seemingly immobile set-

tings among seemingly immobile actors. Looking at how mobility is represented, discursively con-

structed, practiced, and performed, it therefore seems crucial here as well to emphasize the

mundaneness and everyday dimensions of mobility in more ordinary settings.29Moreover, it needs

to be taken into account more often that not only humans but also material objects and informationare mobile and should therefore equally be considered in mobility studies. Despite an increasing

attention to the mobility of material objects and information, human mobility still dominates the



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Pfaff 345

field. Therefore, a stronger focus is needed to deal with the ways in which the mobility of people,

material objects and information relate to each other and can be thought together.

There have been several calls in the past few years for a rematerialization of human geogra-

phy.30With similar trends in the social sciences more generally, geographers have therefore started

to re-think the object as well as the ways in which the material and the social intertwine andinteract.31Following the idea that the social is as much constituted by materiality as the other way

around,32a number of researchers are now seeking to account for the sensuous, concrete and poly-

valent nature of commodities as they inhabit our daily lives.33As Engstroem and Blackler34argue,

it would be a mistake to assume that objects are just given Objects are [not] constructed

arbitrarily on the spot; objects have histories and built-in affordances, they resist and bite-back.

Instead of seeing commodities simply as being produced, existing and observed to circulate through

an economic system, this perspective usually entails understanding objects as an effect of stable

arrays of relations.35In this regard, as active constituents of social relations, the meanings of an

object are not only plural and contested, but also mutable over time and space.36It is, therefore,

particularly the biographies and geographical lives of commodities that have gained geographersattention and are seen to provide a unique window through which to understand their social and

cultural contexts. Building on the ideas of Appadurai37and Kopytoff,38tracing the forms, uses and

trajectories of things-in-motion39 has become a means of exploring negotiations of culture,

questions of mobility, translocal commercial networks and the complex connections between

places.40Conducting follow-the-thing geographies41therefore brings together object and human

mobilities as exploring the life course of an object provides valuable insights into the diverse

encounters between things and people on-the-move and offers a unique opportunity to highlight

the diverse meanings of an object over time and space. However, putting objects at the centre of

interest also creates new challenges for the ways in which empirical research is done and how

information is presented.

Accompanying a mobile phone

Getting to grips with aspects of mobility requires an understanding of the things-in-motion and

the ways in which people try to deal with these mobilities.42Whereas on the one hand this means

understanding the actual movement of an object and, with it, the relationships between people as

well as the connections between places, on the other hand, it entails developing an understanding

of its mobility in the sense of its adaptability and the different ways in which it becomes appropri-

ated, the change of the object itself.43Exploring the connections through which mobile objects

move shows, as Law

44

puts it, that some materials travel better than others. As this study tries topoint out, mobile phones travel quite well, despite changing on their routes as their connections

change. Despite the importance of the technological dimension of making a mobile phone a mobile

phone, this does not result in technological determinism. Instead, it is possible to tease out the dif-

ferences in the use made of the varied potentialities of the technology.45Following de Laet and

Mol,46the mobile phone can be regarded as a fluid technology, holding its shape in a fluid manner

and enacted in practices.

To contextualize the object within prevailing cultural practices and to understand its utilities,

meanings and symbolisms from within the frame of reference of those who interact with it, 47one

particular mobile phone will be at the centre of the ethnographic material presented here. Instead

of seeing the mobile phone as a travelling companion,

48

different people will be seen as thephones temporary travelling companions. People clearly cannot communicate with objects in the

same way that they communicate with other people. Nevertheless, the different meanings that a



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mobile phone incorporates express themselves in the practices in which they are embedded. Hence,

accompanying this particular mobile phone entails examining the phones relationships to the dif-

ferent people to whom it belongs to on its journey and to see what it becomes in respect of the

different ways in which it is dealt with. Moreover, instead of characterizing the person who owns

or uses it, it means concentrating on the mobile phone itself to see what it embodies, what it doesand what it becomes. The focus is not on the person and what s/he generally thinks about and does

to the mobile phone but what they make of the mobile phone. Embodying the desires and ideas of

its users, it mirrors them, causes and influences actions and plays an important role in processes of

identification and the development and negotiation of ideas, cultural practices and ideologies.

During my stay in Tanzania in the first half of 2006, a particular mobile phone aroused my inter-

est as I became involved in the first processes of its adaptation in Zanzibar. Casually following its

career, I was soon struck by its mobility but it was only when I came across the same mobile phone

again in 2007 that I decided to consider its biography as a way of opening a different window to

analyze contemporary trading practices. As a part of my ethnographic research, I engaged in con-

versations about this particular phone with its different owners and users and tried to trace andreconstruct its path in as much detail as possible. While I was there I observed what the different

people involved made of the phone and spent considerable time with them, and I inquired about its

whereabouts (facilitated by having the opportunity to simply call it) when I was not. Although not

covering its whole life, I focus on the period in which it was most closely linked to and part of

Swahili trading practices. Without having to cross national borders or travel long distances, I am

therefore concentrating on the everyday practices and meanings associated with its adaptability

and circulation across Zanzibar and Tanzania over the last 18 months.

Extract from a mobile-phone biography

When I last visited the mobile-phone shops in Kariakoo in August 2007, I was also able to meet

again a particular phone on display in one of the shops in Aggrey, the road mentioned in the begin-

ning. This is the phone a Siemens CF62 that I have known, accompanied and traced over the

last year and a half from its first arrival in Zanzibar to its inclusion in the collection in the shops

glass cabinet. Based on fieldnotes and interviews from ethnographic research, in the following I

will present its path and mobility in relation to the meanings and roles attributed to it by the differ-

ent people using and dealing with it.

Connecting to Africa

This mobile phone came to Africa in the hands of a young Canadian woman who was doing vol-

untary work in a primary school in Zanzibar. During the first weeks of her stay, the phone spent

most of its time in her room in one of the flats in Michenzani49where she was living with a host

family. Without a local SIM card the phone was not much use to her and she hardly used it. Not

having been appropriated to the new environment, it turns into being an object hinting at the tem-

porary nature of her stay, being on a break and waiting to take up its old connections after her

return. Soon a Celtel50SIM card is inserted to improve its connectivity in its new surroundings but

it is still mainly used to communicate with family and friends abroad, allowing her to stay in touch

regularly and spontaneously regardless of the distance involved. Due to the generally high costs of

international calls from Tanzania, the phone was usually called instead of being used to call some-one. Hence, the most important aspect was to be reachable at all times and this reachability pro-

vided a certain feeling of safety on both sides. The phone, allowing the transmission of important



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Pfaff 347

news and for use in cases of emergency, was seen as a promoter of security and remained to a cer-

tain extent in the sphere of control with its centre at home.

With respect to connections within Zanzibar, the insertion of the Celtel SIM card had a signifi-

cant influence on the mobile phone, triggering the important step from being a foreign phone to

becoming a local phone. Being connected through a Tanzanian Celtel number makes the phone a

member of the Tanzanian or even East African network. Furthermore, the number ensures that it is

impossible to see who the phone belongs to and where the owner or user comes from. It simply lets

people assume that the user is a Tanzanian resident. In the same way, the Tanzanian number sig-

nificantly contributes to the phones and the Canadian womans process of going native. Fromher point of view, she has now become more than just a tourist, as tourists generally do not change

their SIM cards while on holiday. By staying for three months, the phone now enables her to com-

municate with friends and acquaintances in Zanzibar and feel part of a Zanzibarian way of life. And

as a Tanzanian number, the phone enters phonebooks and communication networks and creates a

sense of belonging to its new environment.

Finally, instead of taking it home, the Canadian woman decides to leave the phone with the

woman in her host family so that the phone enters a sphere of exchange in which values are nego-

tiated and situational factors play a decisive role. As Gregson51point out, by focusing on ordinary

commodities, giving things up entails not just habit, routine or even competence, but relations

between artefacts, conduits and meanings. For her, leaving the phone in Zanzibar seems to haveopened up a more appropriate future career than re-appropriating it to its former environment and

connections. The phone can even be considered a kind of personal development aid. It becomes

Figure 1. General description and image of the Siemens CF 62



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an object which is seen to do some good to its new owner and, in the process, will make the previ-

ous owner feel good about having given it up.

Becoming Zanzibarian

While the new relations come into being, the shape of the mobile phone holds itself constant. 52

Nevertheless, a number of reconfigurations take place as well as the establishment of a set of new

connections. The Celtel SIM card is exchanged for a Zantel53card as connections to other Zantel

lines are now at the centre of communication. In a way, the phone becomes even more Zanzibarian

as its tasks become completely related to an understanding of Zanzibarian culture. The phones

ringtone is immediately changed to one of the famous Arabic songs to express its owners personal

style. The new Zanzibarian owner of the phone usually spends the equivalent of US$1 a day on the

phone. Instead of buying the credit herself, she usually sends one of the neighbouring children or

the nephew of her husband to go to the shop nearby to get it for her. Sometimes she also calls her

husband who sells top-up-vouchers in his internet-caf to tell him to buy one for her, which shemainly uses to communicate with her female friends and relatives.

Although this sort of communication has existed before the widespread use of mobile phones,

mobile phones facilitate the exchange of news between women allowing for communication to

take place in different spaces. For Muslim women, who usually need to have a reason to leave the

house, the phone allows easy communication with others while each remains in her own private

space. The latest gossip is delivered by phone and with it too the news that this phone was received

as a gift from her mzungu.54Showing off this particular connection, the phone brings something

new to her life. Although neither its appearance nor its features are particularly attractive to the

owner, it is its newness that is appealing. When leaving the house to do some shopping, the phone

is carried in her handbag, sometimes even just held in her hand so that people can see it. At home,when it is not in use, it rests at the far back on top of the dressing table out of reach of her two

children, but still near enough to her so that she can hear it ring.

As the womens exchange particularly consists of sending and receiving of wedding pictures

and religious messages, it is perceived as a deficiency to be unable to take and send pictures. Not

being a model that attracts any admiring attention from her friends, she soon decides to sell it

together with her old phone to be able to buy the long-desired must have. As Katz and Sugiyama

emphasize,55the acquisition, use and replacement of a mobile phone can be related to its fashion

attentiveness. This surely has to be seen alongside the womans financial capabilities and, in this

case, it is the additional selling of the unfashionable phone that allows for an expression of her

sense of self through a phone that is seen to more accurately represent her social and cultural embed-dedness. Despite its deficiencies, it is particularly its exchange value that gives this phone its power.

While waiting to be sold, the phone is regularly lent to friends and theirs borrowed in return. By

practicing this kind of material exchange, the phone moves between different users, thus preserv-

ing its newness. As the Zanzibari woman states, it is completely undesirable to have the same

phone for a long time. Instead, it is important to express the connectedness that allows her to

arrange this kind of deal, showing that she does not need to stand still in life. Changing mobile

phones can therefore be regarded as a way of avoiding stability and ordinaryness. The mobile

phone becomes an expression of an imagined adaptability and part of striving for improvement

while, at the same time, being unsatisfactory in the longer term. To succeed and realize a better

phone by selling her old one, the Zanzibarian woman asks her younger brother to help her. He isknown for trading mobile phones and is given the phone to arrange a deal.



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Pfaff 349

Extending mobile connections

This trader is one of the many young people in Zanzibar who have decided to engage in trade in

order to earn a living. Born in Pemba, he still spends most of his time there but tries to travel to

Zanzibar once a month and also goes to Dar es Salaam as often as possible to look for businessopportunities, orders and possible customers. Responding to the ways in which these phones have

become a crucial and very mobile part of everyday life in Zanzibar, they have become his main

trade good. To him, a mobile phone is a bulk commodity, omnipresent and never failing to be in

need of a new owner. Therefore, his task is to create new owners by tempting people to buy and

sell, with mobile phones always being at the centre of the exchange process.

Receiving the phone from his sister, it is immediately included in a network of trading practices

and added to a pool of mobile phones that are for sale. With a different SIM card entered into the

phone, it now becomes connected to a number of potential buyers and people who might be able to

find one. Apart from extending its connections, the phone also becomes more mobile, as it is gener-

ally carried around in his trouser pockets. Not having a shop, the trader is generally on his way tosee and inform himself of potential buyers or sellers. Moreover, his job involves following people

to get and deliver money that is often paid in instalments. This busyness and mobility can be seen

as a type of resistance to the routine of everyday life. Engaging in trade is considered one of the

few alternatives to hanging around at a maskani56the whole day. In this respect, the mobile phone

becomes both an opportunity and an occupation. Although the trader cannot afford to buy an

expensive phone, his job enables him to use and be seen with the best phones that come into his

hands. From his point of view, this temporary enjoyment contributes to his reputation as a trader

and raises interest in his goods in general.

Still owned by the Zanzibarian woman but on its way to a new owner, the phone now inhabits a

more explicit trading space. Being neither cheap nor attractive to people with little financial meansor being one of the latest models to attract people who can afford more, the phone takes up a

middle position, which makes it less appealing to a potential customer. Along with other phones, it

goes with the trader who usually carries two or three phones with him to show to any potential

customers he might meet. Its ability to travel well is therefore important both for the user and the

mobile trader as it can be carried easily and allows for spur-of-the-moment business and exchange

on the move.57However, many phones in the hands of a young person might lead to accusations of

theft and as it is complicated to prove ones authority to trade, the phone is sometimes left behind

to wait its turn. Sometimes it may be left with someone who has a phone of similar value to sell

and the trader is able to borrow it to present to a potential customer. Over the course of these dif-

ferent trading activities, nobody is ever left without a phone. Depending on its attractiveness, thephone is taken and shown to certain people, or left behind with other people to be able to present

another model instead. It soon becomes obvious that, among the things contributing to a successful

deal, the mobile phone itself is one of the most indispensable and essential. It is made a central

object of the communication between the people involved and becomes an active participant in the

trading network. In the phase when the phone moves from one owner to the next, it does so by

passing through the hands of numerous users and other phones. Instead of a one-phone-one-user

relationship, the phone is part of and embedded in complex connections that complement each

other but are mobile and changing. After a while, the trader benefits from these connections and

finds someone in Pemba to buy the phone at an acceptable price. The phone may not have gener-

ated a huge profit but in his opinion it has contributed to his new career as a trader and to assertinghimself in the traders world.



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Moving to Bongo

The phone has now been bought by a young man in Pemba and has become his first mobile phone.

As he argues, in his hometown of Wete, his everyday life has been characterized by the close prox-

imity between his home, family, workplace and maskaniso that a mobile phone had not seemedimportant. People knew where to find him so he preferred to save money instead of spending it on

superfluous additional communication. In contrast to most of his friends, he does not yet share

the view that not having a phone marked an individual as particularly lacking58but he admits to a

recent desire to own one himself, instead of having to use his friends phones. When he decided to

leave his business for a while to go to bongo,59a common nickname for Dar es Salaam, and look

for new trading opportunities there,60he decided to buy a phone. He is convinced that he will need

to contact people in Dar es Salaam without knowing where to find them and he therefore chose a

simple phone that would enable him to connect to people in an unfamiliar environment and char-

acterized by distances rather than proximity.

This phone thus becomes a necessary accessory61

on his trip to Bongo allowing him to copewith the new distances. The mobile phone creates proximities by bringing people closer and some-

how replaces a proximity to certain places by a proximity to the phone. In Dar es Salaam, the

young man is found via the phone and it is primarily the names and numbers of people he knows

or has heard of that have been saved on the phone by previous users that help him to contact and

meet people. The phone has become a memory preserving and reminding its user of useful connec-

tions and communications. In addition, it gives the impression of having been in use for many

years by having some scratches and looking more hackneyed. Its appearance makes it easy for the

young man to appear as somebody who has had a phone for a long time. This corresponds with

Katz and Sugiyamas idea that phones actively influence the ways in which they are incorporated

into the self-images of their users.

62

While in Dar es Salaam, the young man lives in Kariakoo, sharing some rooms in a Swahili

house with other young men he knows from Pemba and with a Tigo63SIM card, the phone becomes

appropriated to this ghetto life. The term ghetto is generally used to refer to a place occupied by

unmarried young men. From this place it is not far to the shop of his friend where he spends most

of his time. When people he knows have something to sell they contact him, telling him to find a

customer. When he manages to sell the good for a better price than anticipated, he can keep the

surplus, paying for his living in bongo and hopefully also soon allowing him to save some money.

When he is sitting in the shop with his friend, the phone is usually put on the desk in front of him,

awaiting its next incoming call or text message. As it does not have the ability to play music in mp3-

format, it is rather the phones of his friends that are used to listen to the current East African musiccharts, either aloud or by sharing the headphones. When on-the-go through Kariakoo or on his way

to potential costumers, the phone is either carried in his pocket or pressed against his ear when

engaging in a conversation. Overt use of the phone in public is restricted due to the dangers of theft

so the phone spends most of its time in his pocket and becomes something worth protecting.

Especially in the evening, when they are all back in the ghetto, its ability to record sounds is

now used to record the young mens voices, their jokes and sayings in their street language (kiswa-

hili cha mtaani). And at night when tariffs are lower,64the phone is used to catch up with friends

and talk to girls without being disturbed. These conversations emphasize the importance of estab-

lishing and confirming interpersonal relationships through talk and, as already observed by

Abrahams,

65

pursuing friendships is often more important than just passing on a message. Withrespect to relationships with girls, communication by phone allows for a certain kind of intimacy

even though the two people do not see each other face-to-face. Since for most Swahili girls it is not



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Pfaff 351

possible to openly meet a young man and inconspicuous or secret ways need to be found, the

mobile phone adds an important opportunity to get to know and talk to them. While social control

makes secret encounters very difficult, romantic engagement on the phone is far less easily detected

which can be seen as both an advantage as well as a disadvantage for those involved. Despite this

verbal intimacy, the young man states that relationships often remain non-committal as you neverknow who else the other one is flirting with apart from you. After the last conversation is finished,

the phone usually gets recharged over night. During the day it would be only reluctantly left behind,

as you never know who might pass by and take it.

It is generally felt that the phone plays a crucial role for young men in adapting to and leading

a bongo life. For young men in particular, who are always on the go, it makes them feel reachable

while on the move and allows them to be part of a mobile society. As most of the time the phones

new owner is either in the company of friends or in public, apart from overheard and often even

joint phone calls, text messages offer a welcome means of communicating more privately. He thus

uses this service to express more personal concerns or critical points about his new surroundings.

It becomes obvious how the phone embodies different ways of life, moods and interests andbecomes a mediator bringing them together. Nevertheless, before going back to Pemba, the young

man decides to sell the phone to a friend who owns a mobile-phone shop in Aggrey. Having failed

to start his own trading business with some regular income, he settles on returning to his shop in

Pemba and sells the phone to raise cash to buy other goods to sell at home.

Becoming a story

Kariakoo is the part of Dar es Salaam where the establishment of Zanzibari and Pembans is most

visible.66It is where their economic investments are most considerable, and contribute significantly

to the opening of shops and, even more visibly, to the acquisition of land and the replacement of oldSwahili houses with high-rise buildings. Although Aggrey is on one side still characterized by small

houses, numerous shops have opened in its shopping centres between Uhuru Street and Aggrey, all

specializing in mobile phones. Numerous young people from Zanzibar who were previously engaged

in the mobile trade of mobile phones have decided to settle down and are now renting one of the

small spaces mentioned at the beginning of the article. When I was in Dar es Salaam interviewing

some of the owners of these shops, I also enquired about the mobile phone sold by the young man

from Pemba. It was still on display in the glass cabinet of his friends shop and has become part of a

wide collection of mobile phones waiting to continue their mobile lives. For many of the shopkeep-

ers, mobile phones have become an investment. They offer an opportunity of establishing a more

settled life while still allowing mobility. Instead of the kind of mobility lived by the young trader inPemba, many of the traders are looking forward to trips to Asia and Dubai to buy new goods.

Concerning the mobile phone on display, it is important not to stay on sale in a shop for too long as

it is the mobility of the objects in the cabinet that reflects the success of the business. Because of its

age and few functions compared to more recent models, the phone has now become physically

immobile for the first time since being bought by the Canadian woman. Over time, if it turns out to

be hard to sell, it will change from being a welcome addition to the collection to a difficulty and

a hindrance and finally, after we have talked about its biography, it becomes a story.

Conclusion

As I pointed out earlier, the academic debates on mobile phones in Africa are still poorly devel-

oped. In this article I promote object biographies as a fruitful way of engaging with the multitude



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of meanings and roles of mobile phones in everyday life in Africa. I have shown that analyzing an

objects biography reveals a wealth of information, not only about economic relations but espe-

cially about its social and cultural contexts. In many parts of Africa in particular, the mobile phone

is not an object which is imported, sold and then consumed by only one person. Instead, it is

involved in complex practices of exchange and processes of acquisition, appropriation, abandon-ment and selling that influence its different meanings and the role of mobility.

It becomes evident that the mobile phone is much more than just a tool for calling, text messag-

ing, music, photos and phone numbers. It is the device itself as well as its attributes that play a role

in processes of individual expression and identification. The relationship of the Zanzibari woman

to the phone and the phone as imagined adabtability, temporary enjoyment and bongo life

point out how the mobile phone works to demonstrate the importance, financial situation, style and

trendiness of its user. Nevertheless, this extract of the phones biography provides a unique win-

dow through which to understand that a mobile phone is becoming even more than that. The phone

becoming reachability, a womens exchange, an active part in a trading network and a mem-

ory highlights its ability to facilitate social relations while on the move. The variety of relation-ships between people and the object despite their mobility affirms its meaning as social glue67

and reinforces its active participation in the making and holding together of social relations regard-

less of distance.68

These insights into the diverse encounters between people and a thing on the move exemplify

how links are created, how they are maintained and why they break apart. As its biography has

shown, the mobile phone changes from being welcome to unsatisfactory, from being a neces-

sary accessory to a hindrance. This shows that, in contrast to the expectation that with each resale

an object tends to lose value, the phone constantly moves back and forth between the extremes of

different values. Biographies of things are not linear or unidirectional, but instead ups and downs

are incorporated into the idea of a life course.While the varying meanings of an object develop out of the particular relationships between

people and things, I argue that these examples of individual encounters also shed light on the

important dimensions of peoples social lives and culture more generally. What is made of the

mobile phone is closely connected to the making and management of hierarchies, ideologies and

cultural negotiations. Looking at the ways in which the phone and different people perform

together, the relationships can be characterized by their mobility and flexibility. Arguing that

mobility is not only a matter of physical distance, it is especially these ever-changing, spontaneous

relations represented in the fluid space of a mobile phone that play a crucial role in the understand-

ing of contemporary Swahili trading practices.

As emphasized at the beginning of the article, engaging in trading practices can be consideredas going native as many regard it as the proper occupation for a Swahili. Trade, therefore, is not

only worth protecting but also omnipresent in everyday live, creating proximity in a translocal

space and a means to negotiate Swahili identity over distance. In this respect, it is striking that the

mobile phone moves through a variety of different trading practices. Having entered the network

as development aid, everyone involved in its biography can somehow be seen as a trader repre-

senting different visions and ideas of trade. As well as the mobile phone itself, the diverse trading

practices are considered an opportunity, an investment and an occupation and, constituting connec-

tions, they (actually and imaginatively) are a crucial mediator between Swahili in different places.

Accompanying a mobile phone, the mobility, multiple connections and diverse cultural practices

in which it is embedded have become visible. And it is through the engagement with an object thatstories about the mutual constitution of the biographies of the people, objects and places involved

can be revealed.



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Pfaff 353

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank Tim Cresswell as well as the two anonymous referees for their helpful and encouraging com-

ments on an earlier draft. The empirical research on which this article is based is part of a research project on

Mobility, Translocality and Trade: Imaginative Geographies of the Swahili funded by the German ResearchFoundation (DFG): MU 1043/91 (project leader: Detlef Mller-Mahn, University of Bayreuth).

Notes

1 K. Hetherington, Phantasmagorial/Phantasm Agoria: Materialities, Spatialities and Ghosts,Space and

Culture, 1(11/12), 2001, pp. 2441, p. 40.

2 J. Hill, Travelling Objects: The Wellcome Collection in Los Angeles, London and Beyond, cultural

geographies, 13, 2006, pp. 3466, p. 34.

3 F. Topan, Langue et culture swahili Zanzibar, in C. Le Cour Grandmaison and A. Crozon (eds.)

Zanzibar aujourdhui(Paris: Karthala, 1998), pp. 24657; J. Middleton, The World of the Swahili anAfrican Mercantile Civilization (London: Yale University Press, 1992); A. Mbembe, At the Edge of

the World: Boundaries, Territoriality, and Sovereignty in Africa, in A. Appadurai (ed.) Globalization

(Durham, MD: Duke University Press, 2001), pp. 2251; E. Gilbert, Sailing from Lamu and Back: Labor

Migration and Regional Trade in Colonial East Africa, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and

the Middle East, 19(2), 1999, pp. 915.

4 Le Guennec-Coppens,Autorit et Pouvoir Chez les Swahili(Paris: Karthala/Credu, 1998), p. 56.

5 I.A. Villiers, Some Aspects of the Arab Dhow Trade,Middle East Journal,2(4), 1948, pp. 4004.

6 F. Cooper, Plantation Slavery on the East Coast of Africa(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1977),

pp. 3242.

7 C. Le Cour Grandmaison, Rich Cousins, Poor Cousins: Hidden Stratification among the Omani Arabs inEastern Africa,Africa, 59(2), 1989, pp. 17684, p. 179; F. Constantin, Fin des Races ou Debut des Classes?

Inegalites, Representations et Pouvoir sur la Cote Swahili Est-Africaine,APOI, XI, 19861989, pp. 4363.

8 J. Middleton, Merchants: An Essay in Historical Ethnography, Journal of the Royal Anthropological

Institute, 9, 2003, pp. 50926, p. 519.

9 U. Freitag, Islamische Netzwerke im Indischen Ozean, inD. Rothermund and S. WeigelinSchwiedrzik

(eds.) Der Indische Ozean. Das afro-asiatische Mittelmeer als Kultur-und Wirtschaftsraum (Wien:

Promedia, 2004), pp. 6181, p. 79.

10 In Kiswahili the word tajiri (from the Arabic terand translated as trader), refers to a rich person or

someone who engages in commerce (Kamusi ya Kiswahili sanifu 2004). To be a rich person (mtajiri)

does not only mean having money but also refers to being rich in social status. Taasisi ya uchunguzi waKiswahili, Kamusi Ya Kiswahili Sanifu(Nairobi: Oxford University Press, East Africa Ltd., 2004).

11 I am aware that this account sounds very essentialized, giving little sense of any dynamics and change over

time. Nevertheless, it is indeed this very essentialized (sometimes rather ideological and romanticized)

idea of Swahili culture and identity that sticks out in emic (as well as in a number of epic) perspectives on

the subject. Despite this being a construction, it has enormous effects on images of the ideal way of doing

things, of how to become and behave as a proper Swahili.

12 This article is based on my PhD research on Mobility, Trading Practices and Translocality among the

Swahili. By following a mobile ethnographic approach I explored mobile trading connections and the

flows of people, ideas and objects between Zanzibar, Dar es Salaam, the Tanzanian interior, Dubai and

London trying to tease out their contribution to an understanding of a translocal Swahili space.13 P. Meso, P. Musa and V. Mbarika, Towards a Model of Consumer Use of Mobile Information and

Communication Technology in LDCs: The Case of Sub-Saharan Africa,Information Systems Journal, 15,



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2005, pp. 11946, p. 120. H.A. Horst and D. Miller, The Cell Phone An Anthropology of Communication

(Oxford: Berg, 2006).

14 M. Castells, M. Fernndez-Ardvol, J. Linchuan Qiu and A. Sey,Mobile Communication and Society

(Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, 2007).

15 Castells et al.,Mobile Communication and Society, p. 138.16 J.Donner, Research Approaches to Mobile Use in the Developing World: A Review of the Literature,

The Information Society, 24, 2008, pp.140-159. H.P. Hahn and L. Kibora, The Domestication of the

Mobile Phone: Oran Society and New ICT in Burkina Faso,Journal of Modern African Studies, 46, 2008,

pp.87-109. W. Nkwi, From the Elitist to the Commonality of Voice Communication: The History of

the Telephone in Buea, Cameroon, in M. de Bruijn et al. (eds),Mobile Phones: New Talking Drums of

Everyday Africa(Cameroon, Langaa, 2009), pp.50-68. See also H.A. Horst and D. Miller (2006) on the

impact of mobile phones on the experience of poverty among low-income Jamaicans.

17 J.Donner, The Rules of Beeping: Exchanging Messages via International Missed Calls on Mobile

Phones,Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13, 2008, article 1.

18 M.-W. Steenson and J. Donner, `Beyond the Personal and the Private Modes of Mobile Sharing in UrbanIndia, in R. Ling and S.W. Campbell (eds), The Reconstruction of Space and Time Through Mobile

Communication Practices, (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2008), pp.231250.

19 D.J. Smith, Cell Phones, Social Inequality and Contemporary Culture in Nigeria, CJAS/RCEA, 40 (3)

(2006), pp. 496523.

20 Smith, Cell Phones, p. 499.

21 J. Donner, The Use of Mobile Phones by Micro-entrepreneurs in Kigali, Rwanda: Changes to Social

and Business Networks,Information Technologies and International Development, 3, 2006, pp. 319.

R. Duncombe and R. Heeks,ICTs and Small Enterprises in Africa: Lessons from Botswana, (Manchester,

IDPM University of Manchester, 2001). S. Esselar, C. Stork, A. Ndiwalana and M. Deen-Swarray, ICT

Usage and its Impact on Profitability of SMEs in 13 African Countries,Information Technologies andInternational Development, 4, 2007, pp. 87100. M. Geldorf, ICT for Low-literate Youth in Ethiopia:

The Usability Challenge(Berlin and Heidelberg, Springer). T. Unwin, ICT4D (Cambridge, Cambridge

University Press, 2009). T. Unwin, ICT and Education in Africa: Partnership, Practice and Knowledge

Sharing, Review of African Political Economy, 31, 2004, pp.150-160. L. Waverman, M. Meschi and

M. Fuss, The Impact of Telecoms on Economic Growth in Developing Countries, The Vodafone Policy

Paper Series, 2, 2005, pp.1023.

22 A. Gell,Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 12.

V. Oksman and P. Rautiainen, Perhaps it is a Body Part: How the Mobile Phone became an Organic Part

of the Everyday Lives of Finnish Children and Adolescents, in J. Katz (ed.)Machines that Become Us

(New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2002), p. 25.23 E. Laurier, Why People Say Where they are During Mobile Phone Calls, Environment and Planning D:

Society and Space, 19, 2001, pp. 485504, pp. 48990.

24 T. Cresswell, On the Move (London: Routledge, 2006). T. Cresswell, Understanding Mobility Holistically:

The Case of Hurricane Katrina, in S. Bergmann and T. Sager (eds.)The Ethics of Mobilities: Rethinking

Place, Exclusion, Freedom and Environment(London: Ashgate, 2008), p. 3. M. Sheller and J. Urry, The

New Mobilities Paradigm,Environment and Planning A, 38, 2006, pp. 20726.

25 S. Graham and S. Marvin, Splintering Urbanism(London: Routledge, 2001). Sheller and Urry, The New

Mobilities Paradigm, p. 210.

26 Cresswell, On the Move, p. 3.

27 A. Brah, M. Hickman and M. Mac an Ghail, Whither the Global?: Introduction, in A. Brah,M. Hickman and M. Mac an Ghail (eds.) Global Futures: Migration, Environment and Globalisation

(London: Macmillan Press, 1999), p. 5.



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Pfaff 355

28 N. Smith and C. Katz, Grounding Metaphor: Towards a Spatialized Politics, in M. Keith and S. Pile (eds.)

Place and the Politics of Identity(London: Routledge, 1993), pp. 6783; M.P. Smith, Transnationalism,

the State, and the Extraterritorial Citizen, Politics Society, 31, 2003, p. 467.

29 e.g. P. Jackson, Rematerialising Social and Cultural Geography, Social and Cultural Geography, 1,

2000, pp. 914.30 N. Thrift, Spatial Formations(London: Sage, 1996), p. 24; S. Whatmore, Hybrid Geographies: Rethinking

the Human in Human Geography, in D. Massey, J. Allen and P. Sarre (eds.)Human Geography Today

(Cambridge: Polity, 1999), pp. 2439, p. 27.

31 D. Miller, Material Cultures: Why Some Things Matter (London: University College London Press,

1998); N. Bingham, Objections: From Technological Determinism towards Geographies of Relations,

Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 14, 1996, pp. 63557.

32 D. Leslie and S. Reimer, Spatializing Commodity Chains, in Progress in Human Geography, 23, 1999,

pp. 40120.

33 Y. Engestroem and F. Blackler, On the Life of the Object, Organization, 12(3), 2005, pp. 30730,

p. 310.34 B. Latour, Ethnography of a High-tech Case: About Aramis,in P. Lemonnier (ed.) Technological

Choices: Transformation in Material Culture since the Neolithic (London: Routledge, 1993),

pp. 37298, p. 390; J. Law, Objects, Spaces and Others (Lancaster: Lancaster University, Centre

for Science Studies, 2000) .

35 G. Bridge and A. Smith, Intimate Encounters: Culture-Economy-Commodity,Environment and Planning

D: Society and Space, 21, 2003, pp. 25768, p. 259.

36 A. Appadurai, Introduction: Commodities and the Politics of Value, in A. Appadurai (ed.) The Social

Life of Things(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), pp. 363.

37 I. Kopytoff, The Cultural Biography of Things: Commoditization as Process, in A. Appadurai (ed.) TheSocial Life of Things(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), pp. 6491.

38 C. Dwyer and P. Jackson, Commodifying Difference: Selling EASTern Fashion, Environment and

Planning D: Society and Space,21, 2003, pp. 26991, p. 270.

39 See, M. Ogborn, Writing Travels: Power, Knowledge and Ritual on the English East India Companys

Early Voyages, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 27, 2002, pp. 15571; M. Ogborn,

Streynsham Masters Office: Accounting for Collectivity, Order and Authority in 17th Century India,

cultural geographies, 13, 2006, pp. 12755; I. Cook et al., Geographies of Food: Following, Progress in

Human Geography, 30(5), 2006, pp. 65566.

40 I. Cook and M. Harrison, Follow the Thing: West Indian Hot Pepper Sauce, Space and Culture, 10(1),

2007, pp. 4063. I. Cook et al., Follow the Thing: Papaya,Antipode, 36(4), 2004, pp. 64264.41 W.M.J. van Binsbergen, Commodification: Things, Agency, and Identities: Introduction, in W.M.J. van

Binsbergen and P.L. Geschiere (eds.) Commodification. Things, Agency, and Identities (The Social Life of

Things Revisited)(Mnster: Lit Verlag, 2005), pp. 951, p. 24.

42 T. Benfoughal, Ces objets qui viennent dailleurs, in H. Claudot-Hawad (ed.)Voyager dun point de vue

nomade(Paris: Editions Paris-Mditerrane, 2002), pp. 11335.

43 J. Law, Organising Modernity(Oxford: Blackwell, 1994), p. 102.

44 Horst and Miller, The Cell Phone, p. 5.

45 M. De Laet and A. Mol, The Zimbabwe Bush Pump: Mechanics of a Fluid Technology, Social Studies

of Science, 30, 2000, pp. 22563.

46 Bridge and Smith, Intimate Encounters, p. 259.47 N. Thrift, Inhuman Geographies: Landscapes of Speed, Light, and Power, in P. Cloke et al. (eds.)Writing

the Rural: Five Cultural Geographies(London: Sage, 1995), pp. 191248.



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48 Michenzani is an area of Zanzibar Town with mainly six-storey apartment buildings put up between 1964

and 1977 as a part of the New Zanzibar public-housing project with financial support from the German

Democratic Republic.

49 Celtel was a mobile-phone network operating in 15 African countries. Celtel Tanzania was launched in

2001 and was known for its reliability and wide coverage, even reaching remote areas of the country. In2008 it has been rebranded to ZAIN.

50 N. Gregson, A. Metcalfe, L. Crewe, Moving Things Along: The Conduits and Practices of Divestment

in Consumption, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 32(2), 2007, pp. 187200, p. 188.

51 J. Law, Objects, Spaces and Others, p. 8; see also: J. Law, Objects and Spaces, Theory, Culture &

Society, 19(5/6), 2002, pp. 91105.

52 Zantel refers to Zanzibar Telecom Ltd, a joint venture between the government of Zanzibar, ETISALAT

(UAE), Kinbary Investment (Channel Islands) and Meeco International (TZ). Originally operating only

in Zanzibar, it has now expanded its services to the Tanzanian mainland and Eastern Africa.

53 Mzunguis generally translated as a European or white person.

54 J.E. Katz and S. Sugiyama, Mobile Phones as Fashion Statements: Evidence from Student Surveys in theUS and Japan,New Media and Society, 8(2), 2006, pp. 32137, p. 321.

55 In this context maskani (generally translated as dwelling place)refers to a place where (young) men meet

and hang out. Usually, every young man has his maskanithat he visits regularly. But spending a lot of

time at a maskaniis seen as an expression of having nothing to do, being unemployed, becoming lazy and

is sometimes related to an increased consumption of drugs.

56 E. Bender, Social Lives of a Cell Phone,Technology Review, 2004, (12 July 2004).

57 Horst and Miller, The Cell Phone, p. 59.

58 The word bongomeans brain. In slang it is used to refer to Dar es Salaam.

59 Extending their business activities to Dar es Salaam and the Tanzaniaan mainland because trade is thought tobe more profitable there can be observed as a general trend among young people from Zanzibar and Pemba.

60 L. Fortunati, Italy: Stereotypes, True and False, in J.E. Katz and M. Aakhus (eds.) Perpetual Contact

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 4262, p. 54.

61 Katz and Sugiyama, Mobile Phones as Fashion Statements, p. 325.

62 Tigo is a mobile-phone network belonging to Mobitel and operating in fourteen countries, seven of them

in Africa. In Tanzania it has wide coverage and has offered the cheapest tariffs for a long time.

63 Tigo has been famous for two years, especially among young people, for its tariff longer longa time

(longameans chatting) from 11pm5am with one minute costing only 1 TSh (Tanzanian Shillings).

64 R.D. Abrahams, The Man-o-Words in the West Indies: Performance and the Emergence of Creole Culture

(Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983).65 M.A. Saleh, Les Zanzibari Kariakoo, in B. Calas (ed.)De Dar es Salaam Bongoland(Paris: Karthala,

2006), pp. 35368, p. 354.

66 J. Hill, The Story of the Amulet,Journal of Material Culture, 12(1), 2007, pp. 6587, p. 72.

67 D. Pels, K. Hetherington and F. Vandenberghe, The Status of the Object: Performances, Mediations, and

Techniques, Theory, Culture & Society, 19(56), 2002, pp. 121, p. 11.



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Pfaff 357

Biographical note

Julia Pfaff is currently working as a research assistant at the chair of social geography at the University of

Bayreuth, Germany. After having completed her BA in Geography and Development Studies (Bayreuth), she

studied for the MA in Cultural Geography at Royal Holloway University of London. During her studies andas part of her PhD-project on the cultural dimensions of trade and mobility within the translocal Swahili net-

work which she is about to submit, she has done extensive ethnographic research in East Africa, the Comoros,

Dubai and London. Her publications include Finding Ones Way through Places: A Contemporary Trade

Journey of Young Zanzibari Traders, in H.P. Hahn and G. Klute (eds.)Cultures of Migration(Muenster: LiT,

2007), pp. 6188, and Mobile Phone Geographies (forthcoming in Cultural Geography Compass). She can

be contacted at: Lehrstuhl fr Bevlkerungs- und Sozialgeographie, Universitt Bayreuth, 95447 Bayreuth,

Germany; email: [email protected]

Documents

A Mobile Phone Mobility Materiality and Everyday Swahili Trading Practices