Ringing the living and the dead: Mobile phones in a Sepik society

Abstract

Since Digicel services began to operate in remote areas of Papua New Guinea in mid-2007, enthusiasm for mobile telecommunication devices has become a pan-New Guinean phenomenon. During our last fieldwork period, between December 2010 and December 2011, no mobile phone network existed among the Karawari people in the East Sepik Province of Papua New Guinea. However, their expectations were high and some individuals had already purchased mobile phones, which they used as torches, radios, and cameras. In Ambonwari village, people were convinced that Digicel would soon build its tower on their land and enable them to ring both the living and the dead. The dead had already interfered with calls and some people were suspected of possessing phone numbers of their deceased relatives. In our article we explore the relationship between mobile phones, the increasing fascination with phone numbers, and the ways in which the Ambonwari perceive, interpret, and engage with the world.Keywords: mobile phone, new technologies, spirits of the dead, religious movements, Karawari people, Sepik, Papua New Guinea Different theories surrounding the impact of technology on societies and cultures have emerged over time. From a substantive perspective new technology is a domineering and irresistible force in its own right. People have no control over it; they have to keep up with new techniques and these need to be efficient. Technology also serves to explain everything that is taking place in the world, be it society, politics, economy, science or art. From this point of view, technology is not neutral but changes cultures and shapes societies and values (Borgmann 1984: 9; Verbeek 2005: 136). From an instrumentalist perspective, however, technology is value-neutral. Human beings have been perceived as tool-makers since the beginning and technology, regardless of its complexity, is simply an instrument that humans use to accomplish certain tasks. Both rationalism and liberal democracy hold to this perspective, leaving values to develop in a private sphere (Borgmann 1984: 10; Verbeek 2005: 136). Recently a new post-phenomenological perspective has criticised both of these approaches, since they separate technology from human beings, their histories and their cultures. Don Ihde, a philosopher with a keen interest in the history of technology and anthropology, has tried to develop a positive phenomenological framework and phenomenologically-oriented hermeneutics for understanding human-technology relations (Ihde

From garamut to mobile phone: Communication change in rural Papua New Guinea

“…74, 87;"Calling an End to Poverty," 2005;Jensen, 2007;"Less is More," 2005;Mariscal & Bonina, 2008, p. 76; "To Do With the Price of Fish," 2007). Insightful papers on mobile phones in PNG have been published in recent years (Andersen, 2013; Groupe Speciale Mobile Association [GSMA], 2014;Jorgensen, 2014;Lipset, 2013;Logan, 2012;Singh & Nadarajah, 2011;Sullivan, 2010;Suwamaru, 2014;Telban & Vavrova, 2014;Temple, 2011;Yamo, 2013) and as will be outlined in the Discussion section of this paper, these in the main support the findings of this study.…”

‘Yams Have No Ears!’:Tekhne, Life and Images in Oceania

“…Arguably, one does not need to resort to ‘technological determinism’ to see that the massive introduction of new devices and technical processes interacted with Pacific vernacular categories, epistemologies, ontologies, and socialites – a phenomenon well documented in more recent ethnographies. After industrial machines and infrastructures in the course of the 20th century, it is the turn of digital devices (Gershon and Bell ; Lattas 2006; Telban and Vávrová ), among others, to manifest their enchantment and their agency both because of their occult dimensions as well as the particular agency they seem to possess (automation, connectivity, storage, photography, sharing, etc . ).…”

The Thomas Souls Ministry – Onto‐praxis, Dividualism, and Charismatic Catholicism at Lake Chambri, Papua New Guinea

“…But in his Ministry the Christian faith has acquired an idiosyncratic meaning: it is centred not on the resurrection of the dead at the end of time but on their return to the living in the Now, either during spirit possessions or in the bodies of white people, who, as elsewhere in Papua New Guinea, have become associated with the ancestral realm (e.g. Kempf 2002;Lattas 1998;Telban and Vávrová 2014). By praying the rosary, group members seek to enable their dead relatives to return to them and bring about changewhich is mainly associated with obtaining the comforts of white people's lifestyle.…”