Mobility, Telecommunications and Subaltern Transnationalism

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Mobility, Telecommunications and Subaltern
Transnationalism

• Eric C. Thompson
• Department of Sociology
• National University of Singapore
• Mobile Communications and Asian Modernities
• Beijing, October 20-21, 2005

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Themes

• Foreign Workers Mobile Phones in Singapore
• Representational relationship between handphones
  and foreign workers
• Commodification, Communication, Community

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How are mobile phones, foreign workers, and the
relationship between the two represented in
Singapore?
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1989
ST 01/07/89 Mobile phones are a rare item
handphones (as opposed to car phones or bulky
portable phones) introduced in 1988. The
principle of cells explained to readers.
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1990
ST 12/04/90 Users of phones portrayed as
businessmen for whom staying in touch even while
on the move is critical.
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1997
ST 03/08/97 Mobile phone subscription fraud In
which criminal syndicates used identity theft to
apply for mobile phone subscriptions. The phones
were then rented out to foreign workers (for as
little as SG1.00 per minute) to make overseas
calls.
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2001
ST 24/06/01 Foreign workers are behind a big
jump in global SMS traffic the Philippines was
the number top destination of international SMS
on the Singtel network (with approximately
300,000 messages sent to the Philippines in May,
2001 the service was first offered in April 2000
and in May 2001 there were 1.3 million messages
sent worldwide).
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2003
ST 06/06/03 Foreign workers are one of the few
populations who are still heavy users of public
payphones as most do not have access to home or
mobile phones. (Also reflected in ST 19/11/03
ST 11/03/04)
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2002-2005
ST 28/07/02 Mobile phone-armed Filipinas, (who
have) on hand numbers of embassies and help
lines in case of abuse by their employers. ST
15/06/03 Bangladeshi worker tries to give
mobile number to Indonesian maid (prior to
molesting her). ST 04/08/04 Two Thai workers
jailed for robbing another Thai worker of money
and mobile phone. ST 05/03/05b As part of a
story about the lifestyles of foreign domestic
workers in Singapore, a maid goes shopping for a
new mobile phone. ST 14/09/05 A maid, who
came to Singapore in 2001, told her husband in
2003 to get a mobile phone so that they can
communicate more frequently via SMS.
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2003
ST 28/02/04 A model boss of a maid pay for
part of her mobile phone bill. ST 05/03/05
Employer gives a maid a mobile phone, then
confiscates it after discovering mushy SMSes
flying between her and a few men.
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Themes

• Exclusivity (1990s) Mobile phones iconic of
  elite and upper-middle class exclusivity foreign
  workers access them illegally
• Marginality (1999-) Prepaid, used handphone and
  SMS market driven by youths, and secondarily
  foreign workers foreign workers last population
  still using public phones
• Foreign Connection (2000-) Same themes (prepaid
  and used handphones), foreign workers are central
  when story focuses on foreign locations.
• Normalization (2002-) Handphone an unremarkable
  item in connection with foreign workers
  (exchanging numbers, theft, shopping).
• Relationship with Employer (2004-) Handphone as
  an item of privilege (granted by employer)

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Commodification, Communication, Community

• Two ways to conceptualize society and social
  relationships
• Communities (Anderson)
• Networks (e.g. Wellman)
• Community existing through imaginative
  practices and practical imagination. Symbolically
  instantiated. Entailing (a sense of) generalized
  identification and shared practices.
• Networks webs of dyadic connections flows of
  information, resources, etc.

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Technologically Mediated/ConditionedDimensions
of Communications

• Distance
• Face-to-face
• Tele-communication.
• Sensory Systems
• Vision
• Speech
• Text (Vision Speech)
• Mediation
• Mass (One to Many)
• Dyadic (One to One)

• Mass Media
• Television
• Radio (mass telephony)
• Printing Press
• Web Publishing
• Dyadic Media
• Telephony
• SMS (tele-text) (?)
• Email (?)
• Postal Mail

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Mobile Phones Dyadic Social Networking or Mass
Community-cation

• Mobile phones primarily enable dyadic
  telecommunication. Thus, social networks rather
  than mass communication underlying imagined
  communities (in Andersons sense)
• However, mobile phones also enable or are
  associated with imagining foreign worker
  communities in several ways.

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Imagining Mobile Communities

• Representational associations between mobile
  phones and foreign workers which instantiate
  conceptualizations of both (phones and workers).
• Pass forward SMS as mass circulation (also,
  language that limits/bounds the community
  e.g. Filipino, Thai, etc.)
• Networking via mobile phones to instantiate
  foreign worker communities (e.g. domestic worker
  help lines Thai labor cup football tournament).
• Foreign workers as a consumer niche for mobile
  communication services instantiating communities
  through commercial advertising commodification.

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