Invisible Users: Youth in the Internet Cafés of Urban Ghana

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Jenna Burrell (Assistant Professor, University of California At Berkeley) Bonnie A. Nardi

Invisible Users

Youth in the Internet Cafés of Urban Ghana

Jenna Burrell (Assistant Professor, University of California At Berkeley), Bonnie A. Nardi, Victor Kaptelinin (Professor, Umea University) , Kirsten A. Foot (Associate Professor, University of Washington)

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English

MIT Press
04 May 2012

Impact of science & technology on society; Ethical & social aspects of computing

Series: Acting with Technology

An account of how young people in Ghana's capital city adopt and adapt digital technology in the margins of the global economy.

The urban youth frequenting the Internet cafes of Accra, Ghana, who are decidedly not members of their country's elite, use the Internet largely as a way to orchestrate encounters across distance and amass foreign ties-activities once limited to the wealthy, university-educated classes. The Internet, accessed on second-hand computers (castoffs from the United States and Europe), has become for these youths a means of enacting a more cosmopolitan self. In Invisible Users, Jenna Burrell offers a richly observed account of how these Internet enthusiasts have adopted, and adapted to their own priorities, a technological system that was not designed with them in mind.

Burrell describes the material space of the urban Internet cafe and the virtual space of push and pull between young Ghanaians and the foreigners they encounter online; the region's famous 419 scam strategies and the rumors of ""big gains"" that fuel them; the influential role of churches and theories about how the supernatural operates through the network; and development rhetoric about digital technologies and the future viability of African Internet cafes in the region.

Burrell, integrating concepts from science and technology studies and African studies with empirical findings from her own field work in Ghana, captures the interpretive flexibility of technology by users in the margins but also highlights how their invisibility puts limits on their full inclusion into a global network society.

By: Jenna Burrell (Assistant Professor University of California At Berkeley)
Series edited by: Bonnie A. Nardi, Victor Kaptelinin (Professor, Umea University), Kirsten A. Foot (Associate Professor, University of Washington)
Imprint: MIT Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm, Spine: 17mm
Weight: 499g
ISBN: 9780262017367
ISBN 10: 0262017369
Series: Acting with Technology
Pages: 248
Publication Date: 04 May 2012
Recommended Age: From 18
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Jenna Burrell is Associate Professor in the School of Information at the University of California, Berkeley.

Reviews for Invisible Users: Youth in the Internet Cafés of Urban Ghana

In this well-written and compelling book, Burrell deftly supports her conviction that future scholarship must recognize the inconsistencies inherent in the digital experiences of those who live in the margins of our global society. -- Practical Matters