This article draws on Castells’ concept of space of flows to explore the role of mobile communication in mediating the flows of ideas, people and resources concerning Dwesa, a rural community in South Africa. While it is the site of an ICT-for-development project fifteen years in the making, Dwesa is representative of many contemporary South African rural realities in terms of lack of infrastructure, endemic poverty and urban migration. Mobile network coverage is almost universal, sustaining a bidirectional flow of people, resources and information between Dwesa and urban areas such as Cape Town. A critical review of the substantial body of research conducted in the area, as well as thematic analysis of social media texts and semi-structured interviews with community members, reveal that mobile phones play an important and nuanced role in arranging physical or virtual rendezvous, facilitating transfers of monetary and other resources, and enabling timeless communication and exchange of information across distance.
AlbrechtsL.CoppensT. (2003). Megacorridors: Striking a balance between the space of flows and the space of places. Journal of Transport Geography, 11(3), 215–224. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0966-6923(03)00032-2.
2.
ButheleziM.DalvitL. (2019). 10. Exploring how mobile phones mediate bonding, bridging and linking social capital in a South African rural area. In MutsvairoB.RagneddaM. (Eds.), Mapping the Digital Divide in Africa: A Mediated Analysis (pp. 195–214). Amsterdam University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvh4zj72.14.
3.
CastellsM. (1996). The information age: Economy, society and culture (I). The Rise of the Network SocietyBlackwell Publishers.
CastellsM. (2004). Informationalism, networks, and the network society: a theoretical blueprint. The network society: A cross-cultural perspective (pp. 3–45). Edward Elgar Publishing.
6.
CastellsM (2009). The power of identity: The information age - economy, society, and culture. John Wiley & Sons.
7.
CastellsM.Fernández-ArdèvolM.QiuJ. L.SeyA. (2007). Mobile communication and society: A global perspective. MIT Press.
8.
ChatikoboT.DalvitL. (2020). Services, schools and skills: Mobile media and local development in a South African rural area. In: Project and design literacy as cornerstones of smart education (pp. 219–231). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-9652-6_20.
9.
ChigadaJ. M.HirschfelderB. (2017). Mobile banking in South Africa: A review and directions for future research. South African Journal of Information Management, 19(1), 1–9. https://doi.org/10.4102/sajim.v19i1.789.
10.
CollinsonM.TollmanS. M.KahnK.ClarkS.GarenneM. (2006). Highly prevalent circular migration: Households, mobility and economic status in rural South Africa. Africa on the move: African migration and urbanisation in comparative perspective, 35(69), 194–216. https://doi.org/10.1080/14034950701356401
11.
CollopenN. (2015). Media and mobile ecology in a South African rural area (Unpublished BA Honours thesis). Rhodes University.
CristoferiM.DalvitL. (2015). An investigation into money-related mobile phone use in a South African rural community. In SteynJ.Van BelleJ.P. (Eds.), Beyond development. Time for a new ICT4D paradigm? Proceedings of the 9th IDIA conference, IDIA2015 (pp. 327–338). Nungwi.
14.
DalvitL. (2015). Mobile phones in rural South Africa. Indigenous People and Mobile Technologies, 31, 205.
15.
DalvitL. (2018). From access to proficiency. Digital Inclusion: An International Comparative Analysis, 57.
16.
DalvitL.MiyaM. (2017). Becoming a mobile internet user in a South African rural area: the case of women in Dwesa. In: Conference on smart learning ecosystems and regional development (pp. 101–111). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61322-2_10.
DlaminiZ.MalingaL.MasianeT.TshiololiM. (2018). Social media advocacy in the# MustFall campaigns in South Africa. In: ECCWS 2018 17th European Conference on Cyber Warfare and Security V2 (p. 120). Academic Conferences and publishing limited.
19.
DöblerM. K. (2019). Co-presence and family. A discussion of a sociological category and conceptual considerations. In Halatcheva-TrappM.MontanariG.SchlinzigT. (Eds.), Family and Space. Rethinking Family Theory and Empirical Approaches (pp. 11–22). Routledge.
20.
DonnerJ.GitauS. (2009). New paths: exploring mobile-centric internet use in South Africa. In Pre-Conference on Mobile Communication at the Annual Meeting of the International Communication Association (pp. 20–21). Chicago.
GouwsA. (2016). Women’s activism around gender-based violence in South Africa: recognition, redistribution and representation. Review of African Political Economy, 43(149), 400–415. https://doi.org/10.1080/03056244.2016.1217838.
23.
GumboS.ThinyaneH.ThinyaneM.TerzoliA.HansenS. (2012). Living lab methodology as an approach to innovation in ICT4D: The Siyakhula living lab experience. Proceedings of the IST-Africa 2012 Conference. 24(■■■), 29–74.
24.
LingR.HaddonL. (2003). Mobile telephony, mobility, and the coordination of everyday life. Machines that become us: The social context of personal communication technology (pp. 245–265).
MandaM. I.BackhouseJ. (2016). Towards a “smart society” through a connected and smart citizenry in South Africa: A review of the national broadband strategy and policy. In International Conference on Electronic Government (pp. 228–240). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-44421-5_18.
27.
MapiT. P.DalvitL.TerzoliA. (2008). Adoption of ICTs in a marginalised area of South Africa. Africa Media Review, 16(2), 71–86.
28.
MegwaE. R. (2007). Community radio stations as community technology centers: An evaluation of the development impact of technological hybridisation on stakeholder communities in South Africa. Journal of Radio Studies, 14(1), 49–66. https://doi.org/10.1080/10955040701301847.
29.
MphahlwaS. [@MphahlwaSinaye]. (2019, June 8). This is me xa ndisekhaya though a bit far (enqabara) the gravel yonaaaa yuuu yesu ayiqheleki but the fresh air and calmness is worth it. Wish ndinganguwe [Twitter]. https://twitter.com/MpahlwaSinaye/status/1089785652177264642?s=20.
MunongoS.MakinaD.TsauraiK. (2019). Social media and mobile money: Evidence of usage in South Africa and Zimbabwe. In: ECSM 2019 6th European Conference on Social Media (p. 215). Academic Conferences and publishing limited.
33.
NaumannC.GreinerC. (2017). The translocal villagers. Mining, mobility and stratification in post-apartheid South Africa. Mobilities, 12(6), 875–889. https://doi.org/10.1080/17450101.2016.1225862.
34.
NtsebezaL. (2003). Land rights and democratisation: Rural tenure reform in South Africa's former bantustans. Transformation Critical Perspectives on Southern Africa, 52(1), 68–95. https://doi.org/10.1353/trn.2003.0032.
35.
NtshonaZ.KraaiM.KepeT.SaliwaP. (2010). From land rights to environmental entitlements: Community discontent in the ‘successful’ Dwesa-cwebe land claim in South Africa. Development Southern Africa, 27(3), 353–361. https://doi.org/10.1080/0376835x.2010.498942
36.
OjebodeA. (2008). Low patronage of development radio programmes in rural Nigeria: How to get beyond the rhetoric of participation. Journal of multicultural discourses, 3(2), 135–145. https://doi.org/10.1080/17447140802240019.
37.
OjoT. (2016). Global agenda and ICT4D in Africa: Constraints of localizing ‘universal norm. Telecommunications Policy, 40(7), 704–713. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.telpol.2016.05.002.
38.
Pade-KheneC.PalmerR.KavhaiM. (2010). A baseline study of a Dwesa rural community for the Siyakhula information and communication technology for development project: Understanding the reality on the ground. Information Development, 26(4), 265–288. https://doi.org/10.1177/0266666910385374.
39.
PalmerR.TimmermansH.FayD. (2002). From conflict to negotiation. Nature-based development on the South African Wild Coast. Human Sciences Research Council.
40.
PhillipsL. (2017). History of South Africa’s bantustans. In SpearT. (Ed.), Oxford research encyclopedia of African history. Oxford University Press.
RagneddaM. (2019). Conceptualising the digital divide. In MutsvairoB.RagneddaM. (Eds.), Mapping digital divide in Africa: A mediated analysis (pp. 27–44). Amsterdam University. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvh4zj72.6.
44.
SaundersM. N.RojonC. (2011). On the attributes of a critical literature review. Coaching: An International Journal of Theory, Research and Practice, 4(2), 156–162. https://doi.org/10.1080/17521882.2011.596485.
45.
SeyA. (2008). Mobile communication and development: A study of mobile phone appropriation in Ghana. University of Southern California.
StarkL. (2020). Gender, empowerment, and mobile phones in the developing world. In LingR.FortunatiL.GogginG.LimS.LiY. (Eds.), The oxford handbook of mobile communication and society (pp. 529–544). Oxford University Press.
50.
Tasan-KokT.Van KempenR.MikeR.BoltG. (2014). Towards hyper-diversified European cities: A critical literature review. Faculty of Geosciences.
51.
TaylorM.DlaminiS. B.Meyer-WeitzA.SathiparsadR.JinabhaiC. C.EsterhuizenT. (2010). Changing sexual behaviour to reduce HIV transmission–a multi-faceted approach to HIV prevention and treatment in a rural South African setting. AIDS Care, 22(11), 1395–1402. https://doi.org/10.1080/09540121003720960.
52.
Von FintelD. P. (2018). Long-run spatial inequality in South Africa: Early settlement patterns and separate development. Studies in Economics and Econometrics, 42(2), 81–102. https://doi.org/10.1080/10800379.2018.12097335.
53.
WagnerS.Fernández-ArdèvolM. (2020). Decolonizing mobile media: Mobile Internet appropriation in a Guaraní community. Mobile Media & Communication, 8(1), 83–103. https://doi.org/10.1177/2050157918822163.
54.
WassermanH. (2018). The social is political: Media, protest and change as a challenge to African media research. In: The palgrave handbook of media and communication research in Africa (pp. 213–224). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70443-2_12.
55.
ZhangY.LongH.MaL.TuS.LiY.GeD. (2018). Analysis of rural economic restructuring driven by e-commerce based on the space of flows: The case of xiaying village in central China. Journal of Rural Studies, 93, 196–209. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2018.12.001.
56.
ZimbalistZ. (2017). Breaking down rural and urban bias and interrogating spatial inequality, evidence from South Africa. Development Policy Review, 35(S2), 246–269. https://doi.org/10.1111/dpr.12331.
