Doctoral Dissertation Research: Digital Testimony: Mobile Phone Technology and Emergent Publics in Nairobi, Kenya

博士生Lisa Poggiali将在Sylvia Yanagisako博士的指导下，对“数字证词”进行人类学研究，即通过手机短信公开传播的令人不安事件的第一人称描述。作为考察手机技术与作证实践融合的第一个完整的民族志研究，本研究将探讨手机技术在叙事实践中的作用，以及这种实践可能带来的政治参与和社会形态。这项研究将在肯尼亚的内罗毕进行。肯尼亚目前是世界上增长最快的手机市场，初步研究显示，相当数量的肯尼亚人正在使用这项技术。此外，肯尼亚蓬勃发展的技术行业的许多开发人员认为，这些通过数字传输的证词具有政治变革的影响。在为期18个月的人种学田野调查中，研究人员将分析数字证词的制作和分发，并评估其在当代肯尼亚创造新的政治参与和社会形态形式的潜力。她的研究将集中在以下问题上：通过移动电话技术制作和分发证词是否像开发人员所说的那样，构成了当代肯尼亚的紧急见证公众？如果是这样的话，谁构成了这个公众，它是如何产生的，以及对政治和社会产生了什么影响？研究人员将通过考察三个群体的话语和实践来回答这些问题：1)开发使肯尼亚人能够发送数字证词的移动电话平台的开发人员或具有技术头脑的活动家；2)开发人员向其技术专长发表意见的用户；以及3)教育、科学和技术部等国家机构。在持续的民族志田野调查的传统中，研究方法将包括机构民族志、参与者观察、内容分析和访谈。这项研究之所以重要，是因为尽管非洲是一个新兴的技术创新之地，但到目前为止，它在关于技术的学术讨论中一直处于边缘地位。通过研究新技术与其社会和文化背景之间的互动关系，本项目的研究结果将有助于纠正知识分配的不平衡。此外，这项研究将有助于更深入地理解当代国家与非洲及其他地区公共领域之间的关系。资助这项研究还支持社会科学家的教育。

Doctoral candidate Lisa Poggiali, supervised by Dr. Sylvia Yanagisako, will undertake anthropological research on 'digital testimony,' first-person accounts of troubling events that are publicly circulated via cell phone text messages. As the first full length ethnographic study to examine the convergence of mobile phone technology and practices of testimony, this research will investigate the role of mobile phone technology in narrative practice, and the forms of political participation and social formation that such practice makes possible. The research will be carried out in Nairobi, Kenya. Kenya is currently the fastest growing mobile phone market in the world, and preliminary research reveals that a significant number of Kenyans are using this technology. Further, many developers in Kenya's burgeoning technology sector believe that these digitally transmitted testimonials have politically transformative effects. In 18 months of ethnographic fieldwork, the researcher will analyze the production and distribution of digital testimony, and evaluate its potential to create new forms of political participation and social formation in contemporary Kenya. Her research will focus on the following questions: Is the production and distribution of testimony through mobile phone technology constituting an emergent witnessing public in contemporary Kenya, as developers claim? If so, who constitutes this public, how is it being produced, and to what political and social effects? The researcher will answer these questions by examining the discourses and practices of three populations: 1) the developers or the technologically minded activists who are developing the mobile phone platforms that enable Kenyans to send digital testimony; 2) the users who are the audience to whom developers address their technical expertise; and 3) state institutions such as the Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology. In the tradition of sustained ethnographic fieldwork, research methods will include institutional ethnography, participant observation, content analysis, and interviews. The research is important because although Africa is a site of burgeoning technological innovation, it has thus far been marginalized in scholarly discussions of technology. By examining the interactive relationship between new technologies and their social and cultural contexts, findings from this project will help to correct this imbalance in knowledge distribution. In addition, this research will contribute to a deeper understanding of relations between the contemporary state and the public sphere in Africa and beyond. Funding this research also supports the education of a social scientist.