The MicroSDs of Solomon Islands An Offline Remittance Economy of Digital Multi-Media

Abstract

Based on twelve months of multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork, this article investigates the offline circulation of digital media files in Solomon Islands. It explores how circular temporary labour migration drives the acquisition, movement and consumption of digital media, and how these media files contribute to moral controversies. Before the rapid proliferation of mobile phones in 2010, people living in rural environments had limited access to electronic media and the male village elite controlled access to this media, especially foreign movies. Mobile phones, on the other hand, are individually owned and encourage private consumption of media files. At the same time, migrants living in urban areas can easily obtain digital media files and have started integrating them into remittance networks. Access to electronic media in rural areas has exploded. Because foreign visual media are associated with urban, morally ambivalent lifestyles, this proliferation has also fuelled moral uncertainties among rural residents. This article suggests that to understand these moral controversies, and their significance in contemporary Solomon Islands, it is crucial to account for the mobility of digital media files offline and alongside the movements of temporary labourers.

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“…‘Foreign’ media files are usually downloaded at Internet Cafes, or copied from DVDs, and then shared liberally with others. Digital media files spread especially fast since they are increasingly integrated into reciprocal exchange networks (G. Hobbis, ). These files also find their ways into police officers’ mobile phones…”

An ethnography of deletion: Materializing transience in Solomon Islands digital cultures

“…Especially rural populations are only sporadically involved in cash-generating activities. Instead, most cash available to them arrives in villages through the domestic remittance network (Hobbis, 2017b), circulated through small-scale economic activities like canteens and market stalls, and primarily used to meet daily (food) needs and for emergency funds, for example, to pay for school fees. Mobile phones are obtained in similar ways, often by leveraging remittance networks, while activities with pay-per-use costs, such as telephony, are rarely afforded outside of emergencies (Hobbis, 2017a).…”

“…In this context of a ‘metered mindset’ (Donner, 2015: 123), the primary use of mobile phones is, as Geoffrey has argued elsewhere (Hobbis, 2017b), for their multimedia functions. The inbuilt camera feature is used to take digital pictures and videos in abundance, while inbuilt audiovisual players are most frequently used to consume local and foreign-made music, and movies and still images from around the world.…”

“…Especially foreign multimedia files are highly prized. They are used, for example, to combat boredom or even as ‘babysitters’ to keep children busy throughout the day (Hobbis, 2017b). However, these files are also relatively difficult to obtain.…”

“…Even so, not every town-based relative is willing to share foreign multimedia with their rural kin. Such reticence is the result of periodic moral controversies that have, for example, arisen from watching movies that depict sexual relationships outside of marriage (Hobbis, 2017b). Thus, some files are more difficult to obtain than others, complicating the decisions that Solomon Islanders have to make with regard to managing the data that they store on their MicroSDs.…”