Connected

Reviewed by: Connected: How a Mexican Village Built Its Own Cell Phone Network by Roberto J. González Christiane Berth (bio) Connected: How a Mexican Village Built Its Own Cell Phone Network By Roberto J. González. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2020. Pp. 274. Access to the technologies of communication was a key challenge for society throughout the twentieth century. People used telegrams, landline phones, emails, or cell phones for long-distance communication. However, inhabitants of rural areas often remained disconnected, as villages were not a profitable market for commercial firms. Roberto J. González's book, Connected, examines a bottom-up initiative for cell phone service in an indigenous Mexican community. Between 2011 and 2013, diverse actors created an independent technical system in Talea de Castro, Oaxaca, bypassing multinational firms and the state. The author introduces north central Oaxaca as a region with longstanding traditions of political independence, egalitarianism, and creativity dating back to precolonial times. He highlights the inhabitants' openness to cultural, technological, and commercial exchange as historical background for the initiative. In areas like the coffee trade, silver mines, or road-building, bilingual cultural brokers assumed an important role in negotiating with foreign experts or state representatives (chs. 2, 3). Nevertheless, such a long-term genealogy is a risky endeavor, as peoples' openness can experience setbacks due to political or economic circumstances. As a cultural anthropologist with long-term fieldwork experience in the region, González situates the community network as part of broader social and cultural change through new technologies. At the same time, he reflects on his own connections and disconnections to the village over time. Regarding recent history, González reveals that the 2006 social movement APPO fostered community organizing and independent media activism in Oaxaca. The author uncovers how village activists, lawyers, artists, and European hackers formed an alliance for a community cell phone network beginning in 2011 (ch. 4). This section would have benefitted from a discussion of the relationship between the different actors, the exchange of knowledge, the use of different languages, and the maintenance of the network. González's work adds an example of the quick adoption of cell phone technology among rural users to the broad literature on cell phones in countries of the Global South by authors such as Horst and Miller (The Cell Phone, 2006), Sullivan (You Can Hear Me Now, 2007), and Southwood (Less Walk, More Talk, 2008). Initially, the network was an impressive success, as more than 700 people subscribed. However, high demand soon provoked a saturation of the network. Ultimately, the initiative only survived for a short time. Just one year after the network's launch in 2013, Movistar, a brand of the Spanish multinational Telefónica, entered the village. [End Page 1278] Contrary to the local network, Movistar offered mobile data services and could thus provide access to Facebook or WhatsApp. As a result, the local provider lost the majority of its clients within a few years, which González attributes to the local people's pragmatism. Hence, it is doubtful if the project can really be considered an example of "revolutionary action," as González claims in the first chapter (p. 4). And if so, how broad was the social basis of active participants? González demonstrates that suspicion of mismanagement and opposition from local politicians were also responsible for the network's decline. Therefore, it is fair to assume that there was resistance, fear, and non-use in the community. Finally, González also attributes the network's failure to Movistar's attractiveness as a global brand. He argues that cell phones and internet access became markers of social status, especially among young villagers. In the book's last section, González introduces readers to his online fieldwork in digital Talea. By reviewing Facebook accounts, YouTube videos, and blog posts, he concludes that a "virtual village" emerged (p. 108). Most active were those community members who had migrated to the U.S.; they also used digital means to maintain village rituals over distance. By contrast, farmworkers only occasionally contributed posts in social networks and were less present in the virtual village (ch. 6). It remains unclear if farmworkers also

Egalitarianism · Indigenous · Landline · Media studies · Openness to experience · Phone · Political science · Politics · Sociology · State (computer science) · Law · University-Industry-Government Innovation Models