Mobile Networks and Socio-Economic Change in Cambodia: An Ethnography of Marketing and Consumption

Abstract

This thesis ethnographically explores socio-economic change in Cambodia through the prism of the consumption and marketing of mobile networks. Just as Cambodia was embarking on a new era of political and economic change it etched its name in the history books as the first country where mobile network connections surpassed fixed line phones. Since then, mobile network infrastructure has emerged as a symbol of change and progress. When this research began the country was experiencing network subscription growth of nearly fifty percent per annum. Cambodia was thus an excellent location to explore the relationship between network connectivity and socio-economic change. By ethnographically exploring how Cambodians engage with mobile networks this thesis contributes to a new but rich collection of ethnographies on mobile communication from around the world. However, it also differs from these user-centred ethnographies by closely examining the marketing of mobile networks. In the new economy, responsibility for the provision of infrastructure has shifted to the private sector and mobile network providers have been promoted as symbols of how corporations can work in the interest of the world's poor. Therefore, this thesis also turns the ethnographic gaze onto these corporations in Cambodia and explores the inner workings of corporate marketing in order to examine the relationship between corporations and the Cambodian population. To examine the relationship between mobile networks and socio-economic change in Cambodia two questions are asked. The first question concerns how consumers transform mobile networks into infrastructures of social and economic life and the second focuses on how marketers imagine and define the market for mobile networks. The first question leads to an ethnography of how mobile networks are incorporated into everyday life and how Cambodians pursue a range of socio-cultural and livelihood projects through them. The second question leads to an ethnographic exploration of how the consumers of mobile networks are imagined and constructed through consumer research and marketing practice. The answer to the first question demonstrates how Cambodians have transformed mobile networks into infrastructures for configuring their own social and economic networks, and reimagining what they can do and where they can go. Mobile networks have become infrastructures of mobility through which Cambodians transverse geographical terrain to engage in courtship, manage kinship and social relations, and participate in markets at a distance. Through mobile networks Cambodians bridge urban-rural divides and alleviate the difficulties of social and economic remoteness. In contrast, the answer to the second question reveals how corporate market definitions are structured by class subjectivities and classificatory schemes that reinforce social divisions, particularly between rural and urban Cambodians, and accentuate social and economic exclusions. However, this thesis also demonstrates that markets are social and cultural creations as much as they are political and economic creations. As such, markets and consumer value can be redefined in more inclusionary forms that are supportive of everyday Cambodian aspirations. Show more