The rapid expansion of mobile telephony in Africa has been the subject of many debates both in the academia and industry. However, such discourse has tended to focus more on the technology itself rather than its users. This article seeks to frame mobile phones as modern technologies whose contextual uses are heavily entangled in the unique socio-economic dynamics of the African continent. Here the focus is on the African informal economy and the culture it enables, the fractious nature of infrastructure and practices of repair, African notions of conviviality and their political role, and African traditions in the context of globalization. Through these various lenses the study considers the different ways in which the mobile phone becomes Africanized.
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