The space in-between: an ethnographic study of mobile technology and social change in rural Samoa

The mobile phone has been described as an all-purpose ‘Swiss army knife’ that gives consumers access to a network to check emails, make Skype calls, update social media, pay bills, take photos, and even wake them up in the morning. It has evolved into a “central and cultural technology” with the “power” to reconstruct identities, set trends, and micro-organise lives (Goggin 2006, pg.2-3; Lipset 2013). These features enable consumers to shift their reliance on other people and technologies to achieve everyday tasks onto the mobile phone, making them more self-sufficient. Yet, as mobile phone research around the world has revealed, the particular ways in which mobile phones and smartphones are integrated into the everyday lives of consumers varies depending upon pre-existing cultural and communication practices in the societies in which they live. While many practices surrounding mobile phones transcend the local, research indicates that the relative geographic positioning of mobile phones continues to be a major factor influencing how they are integrated into everyday life. The physical and demographic characteristics of locations e.g. rural, urban, large land mass or remote locations such as a Small Island Developing States (SIDS) interact with the cultural and global properties of mobile phones to shape local practices. <br><br>This thesis examines the integration of mobile phones in rural Samoa, an island in the South Pacific that has seen an increase of subscriptions from 2500 (analogue) in 2000 to 91.4 % mobile penetration in 2015 (The World Bank 2013, GSMA intelligence 2016). Drawing upon eight months of ethnographic research in rural Samoa, this thesis analyses whether, and how, the Samoan concept of va is being changed by mobile phone practices. To understand change I utilise the concept of the space in-between as a cultural construct that in Samoa has influenced the strong kinship and cultural bonds in fa’asamoa (the Samoan way of life), and the way these values are mediated via the mobile phone through co-presence. I explore negotiations around villagers’ decisions to access the communicative ecologies that the mobile phone gives rise to and how the va influences the non-use of mobile phones within the village hierarchy. Throughout this thesis I argue that the villages’ rich communicative ecologies and the Samoan concept of va are factors influencing the slow up-take of this device despite an increase in mobile penetration.