Communicating Africa : researching Mobile communities, communication technologies and social transformation in Angola and Cameroon

Although communities are still often conceptually bound to geographical place, transnational studies in the 1990s have led to viewing a community more as a network than as a place. This contribution expands this argument by developing the idea of "strings of people", with connections and communities being intrinsically linked. Based on case studies from northwest Cameroon and southeastern Angola and northern Namibia, the authors argue that such notions of community have been in existence for a long time and that people have always viewed their communities as strings of people in various locations. As people contact each other, they construct and/or maintain community ties. Focusing on life histories of mobility and connections, and on the ways in which people make new technologies fit into their daily lives, the article discusses relations between new ICTs, community, and mobility. Bibliogr., notes, sum. in English (p. 329) and French (p. 323). [Journal abstract]