Papers by Caroline Wamala-Larsson
Routledge eBooks, Nov 25, 2022
Gendered Power and Mobile Technology, 2019
This is a self-archived version of an original article. This version may differ from the original... more This is a self-archived version of an original article. This version may differ from the original in pagination and typographic details.
Mediated Intimacies, 2017
Proceedings of the 5th InternationalConference on M4D MobileCommunication Technologyfor Developme... more Proceedings of the 5th InternationalConference on M4D MobileCommunication Technologyfor Development : M4D 2016, General Tracks
Ambio, 2021
Like the rest of the world, African countries are reeling from the health, economic and social ef... more Like the rest of the world, African countries are reeling from the health, economic and social effects of COVID-19. The continent’s governments have responded by imposing rigorous lockdowns to limit the spread of the virus. The various lockdown measures are undermining food security, because stay at home orders have among others, threatened food production for a continent that relies heavily on agriculture as the bedrock of the economy. This article draws on quantitative data collected by the GeoPoll, and, from these data, assesses the effect of concern about the local spread and economic impact of COVID-19 on food worries. Qualitative data comprising 12 countries south of the Sahara reveal that lockdowns have created anxiety over food security as a health, economic and human rights/well-being issue. By applying a probit model, we find that concern about the local spread of COVID-19 and economic impact of the virus increases the probability of food worries. Governments have responde...
Participatory approaches to Development through Mobile Technologies: : A review of the M4D bienni... more Participatory approaches to Development through Mobile Technologies: : A review of the M4D biennial conference proceedings
Promoting Social Change and Democracy through Information Technology
Attracted by the new Information and Communication Technologies, actors across the world have ado... more Attracted by the new Information and Communication Technologies, actors across the world have adopted computer-based systems for use in government as a means of reforming inefficiencies in public administration and public service provision. This book chapter, through the study of an electronic property tax collection system in Bangalore, India, seeks to unravel the social dynamics shaping similar e-government initiatives. The research upon which this chapter is based analyses prevailing actor behaviour, motivations, and interactions; examining not only the interplay of local contingencies and external influences acting upon the project's implementation and transformation, but also the disjunctions in these relationships which inhibit the effective exploitation of ICTs in the given context.
Journal of Eastern African Studies, 2018
This research project is situated within the area mobile technologies for development (M4D), i.e.... more This research project is situated within the area mobile technologies for development (M4D), i.e. that mobile communication technologies play a vital role in the livelihood of people in developing regions. Out of a larger explorative study of how market women in Kampala use their mobile phone(s), this article focuses on the transformation of the so-called informal economy, here in the form of Kampala street markets. Departing from stories of the women themselves, the article discusses the role of mobile telephony in this transformation. The street markets today have become hybridized as mobile money allows for non-street transactions. The appropriation of the mobile phone into these micro enterprises, we argue, has the potential to produce new regulatory spaces, considering that mobile services, located in the formal sector, are deeply embedded in Kampala's informal economic practices. To make sense of these results, we turn to science, technology and society studies (STS). STS helps us understand the mutual coproduction of mobile phone practices and the transformation of the street markets. The mobile phone represents a force for change in the market women's economic activities, at once challenging and reinforcing the informality of the Kampala markets.
In this article we depart from studies on empowerment and its intersections with the informal eco... more In this article we depart from studies on empowerment and its intersections with the informal economy and market women in the global south and promises of the mobile phone in so-called developing r ...
Power and Informality in Urban Africa, 2021
Power and Informality in Urban Africa, 2021
Gendered Power and Mobile Technology
Stark, Laura Stark, L. (2019). Sex, social reproduction, and mobile telephony as responses to pre... more Stark, Laura Stark, L. (2019). Sex, social reproduction, and mobile telephony as responses to precarity in urban Tanzania. In C. Wamala Larsson, & L. Stark (Eds.), Gendered Power and Mobile Technology : Intersections in the Global South (pp. 48-69). Routledge. Routledge Advances in Feminist Studies and Intersectionality.
Mobile Media & Communication, 2015
In this article we depart from studies on empowerment and its intersections with the informal eco... more In this article we depart from studies on empowerment and its intersections with the informal economy and market women in the Global South and promises of the mobile phone in so-called developing regions. Conducting an explorative study among market women in Kampala, the aim is to examine what roles (if any) the mobile phone plays for them in terms of empowerment. Our findings resonate with studies from other parts of the world, suggesting that while pivotal for their business endeavors, mobile phone practices are also embedded in patriarchal structures. By discussing how these market women navigate the tensions between using the phone for their business and in relations to their partners, the article contributes a more nuanced and context-specific understanding of mobile phone practices and the empowerment of market women. We conclude the article by suggesting a situated approach to the study of empowerment.
Gendered Power and Mobile Technology: Intersections in the Global South, 2019
For over a decade, the dominant development narratives surrounding mobile communication technolog... more For over a decade, the dominant development narratives surrounding mobile communication technologies have emphasized that they can be used to narrow socioeconomic disparities across genders, countries, and regions. The basic premise of this media and policy rhetoric is that the economically less privileged populations of the global South have leapfrogged into modernity via information and communication technologies (ICTs), with especially mobile phones having become 'the latest champions of poverty reduction' (Sey 2011, 376). If the focus is purely on technological connectivity in its most basic sense, it can be argued that the digital divide between societies has narrowed considerably over the past two decades. Mobile phones have been widely adopted among even the poorest of the poor in low-income countries, and they enable communication and information exchange in the remotest parts of the globe. In the global South, mobile phones have rapidly become the communication technology with the broadest and most intensive social impact on the 2 everyday lives of individuals. Many in the developing world are just as much members of the new digital generation as those living in the global North (Gajjala 2014). Given the increasing availability of smartphones, the effects of mobile-transmitted data and communication are only poised to increase in the developing world. At the same time, this techno-optimism has come under criticism. Enthusiasm over mobile communication for development (M4D) relies on assumptions that mobile phones can function as 'smart catalysts to development' because they are frequently the most complex technological device in rural villages, and the only modern technology owned personally by those in poverty. Yet the benefits of mobile technology can only reach marginalized persons in developing countries if users are not disadvantaged by access to these technologies or gaps in usage ability (Dodson et al. 2013, 79; Murphy & Priebe 2011). Digital and communicative divides are gendered, as well as structured by age, socio-economic status, education, language and geography. Thus M4D and feminist technology research need to map out the place of mobile phones within a broader ecosystem of social power dynamics. Although feminist technology studies (FTS) have been instrumental in developing the theoretical and methodological tools to analyze technology and gender simultaneously, there has been relatively little attention to the experiences from non-western societies. This has meant that theoretical and methodological standards have been largely informed by Western accounts (Bray 2009, 47; Mellström 2009). Having organized and participated in mobiles-for-development (M4D) conferences and events, the editors of this volume acknowledge that gendered experiences in the developing world and its attributes are not always made visible in academic events and discourse. The impetus for producing this anthology arose from this lack, contributing to existing 3 debates how gender and mobile telephony mutually constitute each other in processes of design, use and access.
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Papers by Caroline Wamala-Larsson