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

博士候选人丽莎波贾利，由西尔维亚柳佐博士监督，将进行人类学研究的“数字证词”，第一人称帐户的麻烦事件，是公开传播通过手机短信。作为第一个完整的民族志研究，以检查融合的移动的电话技术和证词的做法，本研究将探讨移动的电话技术在叙事实践中的作用，以及政治参与和社会形成的形式，这种做法成为可能。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移动的电话市场，初步研究表明，相当多的肯尼亚人正在使用这项技术。 此外，肯尼亚新兴技术部门的许多开发人员认为，这些数字传输的证词具有政治变革的影响。 在18个月的民族志实地考察中，研究人员将分析数字证词的生产和分布，并评估其在当代肯尼亚创造新形式的政治参与和社会形成的潜力。 她的研究将集中在以下问题上：通过移动的电话技术制作和传播证词是否像开发人员所声称的那样，在当代肯尼亚构成了一个新兴的见证公众？ 如果是这样的话，谁构成了这个公众，它是如何产生的，以及产生了什么样的政治和社会影响？ 研究人员将通过检查三个群体的话语和实践来回答这些问题：1）开发人员或具有技术头脑的活动家，他们正在开发移动的电话平台，使肯尼亚人能够发送数字证词; 2）用户是开发人员向其提供技术专长的受众; 3）国家机构，如教育，科学和技术部。 在持续的民族志田野工作的传统，研究方法将包括机构民族志，参与观察，内容分析和访谈。 这项研究很重要，因为尽管非洲是一个新兴技术创新的地方，但迄今为止，它在学术讨论中一直被边缘化。 通过研究新技术与其社会和文化背景之间的互动关系，该项目的研究结果将有助于纠正知识分布的这种不平衡。 此外，这项研究将有助于更深入地了解当代国家和非洲及其他地区的公共领域之间的关系。 资助这项研究也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.