This introduction scans the effects of mobile-phone communication, particularly in South Asia. It focuses on three important areas: political economy, politics and social practices. By 2012 India had more than 900 million telephone subscribers, 96 per cent of them on cell phones, and the majority of users were the poor. At the other end of the social scale, the mobile phone provoked bitter struggles among some of India’s biggest business houses and branches of government, and was responsible for criminal cases against politicians at the highest level.
The essays in this volume are a reminder that technology is anything but neutral. The essays examine the many facets of mobile phone communication and the institutions, agents, mechanisms and networks such communication relies on. The essays contribute to efforts to interpret the effects of this technology and to gain insight into the most important aspect of the mobile phone: the sheer variety of activity (political, social and cultural) on which it impinges.
移動電話在印度與尼泊爾：政治經濟學、政治、社會與移動電話
本文概述移動電話通訊在南亞的社會影響並著重於三個重要領域：移動電話的政治經濟學、移動電話政治、以及移動電話的社會實踐。截止到2012年印度已擁有九億多的移動電話用戶，其中百分之九十六是手機用戶，并且大多數用戶是窮人。在另一個社會層面上，移動電話激發了印度最大的商業機構和政府部門之間的激烈爭鬥以及針對政界高層的犯罪事件。
本期所收錄的文章提醒我們科技從來不是中立的。這些文章攷察了移動電話通訊的各個方面及其所依賴的機構、行為者、體製和網絡。這些文章將幫助我們理解移動通信科技的社會影響，並加深我們對移動電話一些最重要方面的了解——尤其是其對廣泛多樣的政治、社會、文化等活動的影響
Translated by Xin Huang
Robin Jeffrey