anthropological perspectives on mobile communication by Castulus Kolo Parallel to the diffusion of the Internet’s utilisation the mobile phone as a means of communication has spread all over the world even faster, and still unhampered. Diverse Internet services meanwhile have established themselves in the focus of social and cultural academic disciplines—even different currents of research are noticeable, like e.g. cyberanthropology. Yet mobile communication has been widely neglected—at least in the German-speaking part of academia. Seen from a sociocultural anthropological vantage point not the technology itself is especially interesting, but the charging of the end devices with cultural meaning, and the … Continue reading →

The significance of computer-mediated communication for the development of transnational communities by Heike Greschke More and more the Internet is used by transnational populations. For instance in order to maintain relationships to affiliates, to get up-to-date information on the region of origin, or to to exert political influence as a diaspora. Nevertheless we know comparatively few about the social consequences of this growing integration of electronic media of communication into the everyday life of transnational populations. This presentation is based on data from a still running ethnographical study on an Internet discussion-forum. Said forum is used by people stemming from … Continue reading →

by Frauke Lehmann Free software (also Open Source) is a comparatively uncommon subject of research for sociocultural anthropology. Those ‘into’ free software constitute a social formation which almost exclusively is to be located on the Internet. The individual members are dispersed all over the globe, their shared core interest is the production of the post-industrial commodity software. But nevertheless this field promises interesting and enriching knowledge for sociocultural anthropology. The latter in turn is able to contribute crucially to the understanding of said field. When looking at free software’s fabric of property, the organisation of particular projects, the economic system, … Continue reading →