Mobile (for) Development
When Digital Giants Take Care of Poor Women
Published on 14. September 2022
978-1-009-20240-4 (ISBN)
Description
With their widespread use in the Global South, mobile phones are attracting growing interest from international aid actors and local authorities alike, who are positioning mobile technology as a growth driver and a solution to many social problems. Initiated by giants of the digital industry, these policies are reviving old questions about technological development, the relationship between the market sector and States, and the role of technology in the inequalities between the Global North and Global South. Through a multi-sited ethnography on maternal care in Ghana and India, this Element provides a first-hand look at initiatives that promise to improve poor women's health in the Global South through the use of mobile phones; a field known as Mobile Health or mHealth. Attentive to the way in which these technical objects modify power relations at both international and local levels, this Element also discusses how mHealth transforms care practices and healthcare.
Reviews / Votes
'... a very enlightening overview of the contribution of STS to sociology in general and, in this specific case, to the sociology of health inequalities and that of digital uses. Her investigation also sheds light on the way in which technological development interferes in the inequalities between Western countries and countries of the South to better reconfigure them. In this way, it also represents a contribution to the understanding of the contemporary recompositions of development policies.' Cecile Thome, La vie des ideesMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge
United Kingdom
Illustrations
Worked examples or Exercises
File size
3,83 MB
ISBN-13
978-1-009-20240-4 (9781009202404)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
09/2022
Cambridge University Press
€24.00
Shipment within 15-20 days
Person
Content
Introduction; 1. Mobile Health: a 'simply brilliant' innovation; 2. Key concepts and methods for studying mHealth; 3. Global dependencies and North-South inequalities; 4. Datafication, data work and data management of healthcare; 5. Optimisation and performance management of healthcare workers; 6. Intersecting technological inequalities; 7. Conclusion and implications for future research.
