Lo Smartphone Globale: Non solo una tecnologia per giovani
An Italian Translation of The Global Smartphone
Daniel Miller, Laila Abed Rabho, Patrick Awondo, Maya de Vries, Marília Duque, Pauline Garvey, Laura Haapio-Kirk, Charlotte Hawkins, Alfonso Otaegui, Shireen Walton, and Xinyuan Wang and translated by Laura Liucci
Se c’è una cosa che abbiamo sempre, letteralmente, sotto il naso, è lo smartphone. Ed è normale credere, dunque, che sappiamo cosa sia. Ma è davvero così? Per scoprirlo, 11 antropologi hanno trascorso 16 mesi in varie comunità in Africa, Asia, Europa e Sud America per osservare il modo in cui gli anziani utilizzano lo smartphone, e la loro ricerca ha rivelato che si tratta di una tecnologia rivolta a tutti, non solo ai giovani.
Lo smartphone globale presenta i risultati frutto di questo progetto di ricerca comparativa di respiro globale. Gli smartphone sono diventati tanto un luogo in cui viviamo, quanto un dispositivo di ‘opportunismo perpetuo’ da cui non ci separiamo mai. Gli autori hanno dimostrato che lo smartphone è molto più di un ‘contenitore di app’, concentrandosi sulle differenze tra ciò che le persone dicono sugli smartphone e il modo in cui li usano.
Nessun dispositivo aveva mai raggiunto un tale livello di ‘trasformabilità’ – trasformabilità che si concretizza nella capacità di assimilare rapidamente i nostri valori personali. Per poterlo comprendere, dunque, dobbiamo tener presente un’ampia gamma di sfumature nazionali e culturali, quali la comunicazione visiva in Cina e Giappone, i trasferimenti di denaro sotto forma di credito telefonico in Camerun e in Uganda, e l’accesso a informazioni mediche in Cina e Irlanda, oltre alle diverse traiettorie della terza età ad Al Quds, in Brasile e in Italia. Solo allora potremo sapere davvero cos’è uno smartphone e capire appieno l’impatto che ha sulla vita delle persone in tutto il mondo.
Alfonso Otaegui is Assistant Professor at the Anthropology Department of the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. He completed his PhD in Social Anthropology and Ethnology at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS).
Charlotte Hawkins is Postdoctoral Researcher in Social Anthropology. Her work focuses on social economies of mental health and wellbeing.
Daniel Miller is Professor of Anthropology at UCL. He has specialised in the anthropology of material culture, consumption and now digital anthropology. He recently directed the Why We Post project about the use and consequences of social media. He is author/editor of over 40 books including The Comfort of Things, A Theory of Shopping, Stuff, Tales from Facebook and his most recent book about hospice patients, The Comfort of People.
Laila Abed Rabho is a researcher at the Harry S. Truman Institute for the Advancement of Peace.
Laura Haapio-Kirk is a PhD student at UCL Anthropology and RAI/Leach Fellow in Public Anthropology.
Marília Duque is a researcher at ESPM (Escola Superior de Propaganda e Marketing) in São Paulo, Brazil.
Maya de Vries is Postdoctoral Researcher at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Patrick Awondo is Postdoctoral Researcher at UCL Anthropology and a lecturer at the University of Yaoundé 1.
Pauline Garvey is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Maynooth University, Maynooth, Co. Kildare, Ireland. Her research interests include material culture, consumption, design, and Nordic domesticity before her more recent interest in digital anthropology and ageing. Recent publications include a special issue of the Journal of Design History titled 'Design Dispersed', edited with Adam Drazin (2016), and a monograph entitled Unpacking IKEA: Swedish Design for the Purchasing Masses (2018). Research for this work was funded by the Irish Research Council and The Swedish Institute.
Shireen Walton is Lecturer in Anthropology at Goldsmiths, University of London.
Xinyuan Wang is a digital anthropologist based at UCL’s Department of Anthropology. She is the author of Social Media in Industrial China (2016), and co-author of How the World Changed Social Media (2016) and The Global Smartphone (2021).
Format: Open Access PDF
colour illustrations
ISBN: 9781800081499
Publication: December 09, 2021
Series: Ageing with Smartphones
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