Speaking back to the divide

Reassembling gender, mobile communication, and AI through feminist data justice in Zambia

Bibliographic Data

ID17819437
AuthorsCaroline Wamala Larsson (Stockholm University, corresponding author), Caroline Wamala-Larsson (0000-0003-4920-9182, SPIDER Centre – Stockholm University)
Year2026
Publication date2026-04-28
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueMobile Media & Communication (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2050-1579 • E-ISSN: 2050-1587
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/20501579261443596
OpenAlexW7157077249
LanguageEN
References cited17

Drawing on the Ask Viamo Anything (AVA) Pilot in Zambia, a voice-first generative AI integrated into mobile phones, this article examines how mobile AI platforms reassemble the gendered digital divide. Through a feminist technology studies and feminist data justice lens, it argues that systems like AVA embody both empowerment and constraint: they enable women and youth to engage in private, trusted, voice-based communication while simultaneously reproducing structural exclusions through language, moderation, and infrastructural dependency. This commentary situates mobile AI within mobile communication scholarship, extending its concern with everyday mediation, intimacy, and mobility into the algorithmic age. In doing so, the article illustrates mobile AI as a new communicative form that redistributes agency, visibility, and voice along gendered lines

Economic Justice · Empowerment · Feminism · Gender justice · Mobile computing · Mobile device · Mobile technology · Mobile telephony · Ethics and Social Impacts of AI · ICT in Developing Communities · Innovative Human-Technology Interaction

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