Document details

The Great Indian Phone Book: How the Cheap Cell Phone Changes Business, Politics, and Daily Life

Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press (2013), xxxii, 293 pp.

Contains illustrations, maps, bibliogr. pp. 265-280, index

ISBN 9780674072688 (hbk)

Signature commbox: 317:70-General 2013

"Over just a decade in India, the mobile phone was transformed from a rare, unwieldy instrument to a palm-sized staple that even poor fisherman can afford. Assa Doron and Robin Jeffrey investigate the social revolution ignited by what may be the most significant communications device in history and explore the whole ecosystem of cheap mobile phones." (Publisher description)
Introduction: 'So Uncanny and Out of Place', 1
PART I: CONTROLLING
1 Controlling Communication, 19
2 Celling India, 39
PART II: CONNECTING
3 Missionaries of the Mobile, 65
4 Mechanics of the Mobile, 89
PART III: CONSUMING
5 For Business, 115
6 For Politics, 143
7 For Women and Households, 165
8 For 'Wrongdoing', 185
Conclusion: 'It's the autonomy, stupid', 209