Abstract
The ethereal transmission, all-present portability, and cross-platform convergence of the mobile phone have fuelled a triumphalism of mobility, an illusion that every mobile phone user has equal access to the economy of flow enabled by the technology and can live, sooner or later, in a world without spatial, temporal or structural barriers. Deflating this illusion requires meticulous scrutiny of the diverse ways in which mobile phones are incorporated into social and cultural lives. While previous research has been largely centred on western, urban, middle-class young users, Cara Wallis’s book Technomobility in China turns to a group that is marginal both socially and academically: young migrant women in China. From this very different territory arises a mixed picture as mobile phones can only deliver what Wallis calls ‘immobile mobility’ which ‘allows for overcoming myriad constraints, yet it can never erase these completely’ (p. 183).
This notion is derived from the examination of four aspects of migrant women’s mobile phone usage, which constitute the topics of four main chapters of the book. The first aspect concerns how mobile phones are used to meet migrant women’s quest for development and modernity. Wallis argues that possessing and using a mobile phone entails the transcendence of material constraints and discursive exclusions, allowing migrant women to feel part of a modern cosmopolitan culture. But at the same time, their lack of skills in dealing with mobile phones also reinforces their inferior social standing in an urban society. The second aspect involves the extent to which mobile phone usage enriches migrant women’s social networks and mediates their intimate relationships. Similarly, while the mobile phone was migrant women’s most important medium for socializing and dating, in the majority of instances it only connected them with people like themselves rather than expanding their social networks to other social strata. The third manifestation of ‘immobile mobility’ is young migrant women’s use of their camera phones to document the world they know, to fashion the self they desire, and to envision the future they hope for. Lastly, ‘immobile mobility’ unfolded through the labour politics of young migrant women in the workplace. Mobile phone use promised more job opportunities but rarely led to a better job or to a higher income. In this sense, the mobile phone can serve both as a ‘weapon of the weak’ for migrant women and as a new form of surveillance and discipline for their employers.
Wallis’s work offers a good example of ‘non-media-centric media studies’, focusing on the media’s interweaving with people’s everyday life or on ‘media assemblage’ rather than the media themselves. A substantial part of the book is focused on the socio-economic transformations China has undergone in the market reform era, and how these transformations have led millions of young women to move from the countryside to the city. These transformations have also shaped these women’s notion of gender and self in the pursuit of being modern. This broader view reveals the elements underlying the flow of relationships and power that give meaning to migrant women’s possession and operation of mobile phones. For Wallis, appreciating the particularities of this unique communication technology is more about mapping ‘its power to assemble specific bodies, passions, and representations in particular ways’ (p. 15), rather than simply about digging into the features of the technology itself.
However, it is the close-ups which capture the details and intricacy of the mobile phone assemblage and which constitute the book’s major source of originality. A good example is Wallis’s interpretation of young migrant women’s use of mobile phones as a way of combining multiple media usages on one device. On the surface, migrant women were simply catching up on a trendy activity available for all mobile phone users. But Wallis reminds us that this happened to young migrant women largely because most of them did not have any digital device other than the mobile phone. Therefore for them, this was a ‘necessary convergence’, which resulted from certain economic and technological constraints and the ingenuity to overcome them. This is obviously in contrast to what convergence means for middle- or upper-class users who own multiple devices and have the freedom to use them as a convergent technology for the sake of convenience and efficiency.
Mapping the intersection of two profound forces of mobility – mobile phones and migration – is a daunting challenge for any researcher. Those who have the courage to take on the challenge have to be strategically selective in their research objects and theoretical approaches. It is therefore not surprising that Wallis’s insights come with limitations, but the book would have benefited from a readier reflection on them. Theoretically, the book is particularly strong in feminist studies and communication theories. However, a whole body of literature on mobility has not been addressed, despite its obvious significance to the conceptualization of the study. Had Wallis paid more attention to this field, and especially to the rise of the ‘new mobilities paradigm’ in human geography, sociology, media studies and migration studies, she would have dwelled more on what she means exactly by ‘mobility’ and ‘immobility’ and on how these concepts relate to each other, before coining the concept of ‘immobile mobility’. Wallis’ definition of ‘immobile mobility’ – ‘a socio-techno means of surpassing spatial, temporal, physical, and structural boundaries’ (p. 6) – implies that, in her analytical framework, ‘mobility’ and ‘immobility’ connote two irreconcilable forces: movement, connectivity and speed on the one side; barriers, constraints and frictions on the other. The so-called ‘immobile mobility’ can be understood as nothing but the result of the zero-sum contest between these two forces. The underlying logic of this conceptualization echoes the binary view of the mobile versus the immobile that has long dominated our understanding of mobility. Wallis’s assumption that there seems to be no need to define what the mobile and the immobile mean respectively is just another manifestation of how that binary has produced a meaning enclosure of the two concepts. As many critics contend, the predicament of this immobile/mobile dichotomy lies in its inability to address the ubiquitous interdependence between mobility and immobility, movement and stillness in modern life. It is also problematic to assume that the experience of migration and the migrants’ struggle is a process that is always and only about mobility and movement while combating the constraints of immobility and emplacement. In fact, those who are on the move are both migrants and settlers. It is the constant tension between emplacement and displacement, rather than never-ending movement, which defines people’s experiences in the trajectory of migration. Since both mobility and immobility can be desired or coerced depending on how power relations work in different situations, it is crucial to recognize that the politics of location has an integral role to play in the politics of mobility.
Had all these voices been taken into account, Wallis’s nuanced exploration of migrant women’s mobile phone use would have been opened up to another layer of complexity. For example, if the meaning of immobility is not fixed to ‘constraint’ and ‘barrier’, but embodies ‘settlement’, ‘homing’ and ‘grounding’, might it become a desired option for young migrant women? If so, then what discourses and socio-techno conditions prevented them from achieving it after years of living and working in the city? To what extent did their mobile phones help them not only to surpass spatial and structural boundaries, but also anchor a sense of home and place? However paradoxical it appears, it seems impossible to chart a complete territory of ‘technomobility in China’ without examining the technology’s myriad connections with immobility.
That said, Wallis’s book is an insightful and unique addition to our understanding of how mediated mobility is experienced and negotiated in people’s everyday life. It is recommended reading for those who are interested in media technologies, mobility and contemporary China.