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Abstract. This paper explores the interdependency between a new technology and society in Siberia. It is argued that the use of the mobile phone must be analyzed with regard to the cultural context. The author explains the mobile phones significance through its central function: the quick and easy access to social networks. The technology supports the organization of reciprodty within these networks and affects forms of communication and social interaction. The use of the mobile phone in Siberia underlines the importance of social networks and their specific structure in postsocialist societies.
[postsodalism, sodal networks, mobile phone, Siberia, reciprodty]
Within just a few years the mobile phone has spread worldwide and has become an integral part of our modern network society (Castells 1996:469-478), a society 'whose social structure and social practices are organized around microelectronicsbased networks of information and communication' (Castells et al. 2007:258). In non-Western societies in particular the mobile phone is in many places the first nonunidirectional communication technology that a majority of people has access to. In this paper I want to argue that the mobile phone's use is deeply embedded in its cultural context, for it is closely associated with state structures, legal systems, social patterns and economic factors. In order to understand the application of the technology one has to be familiar with the environment in which it is used. Not only is the technology adapted to local realities; it also has an impact on them. A global technology like the mobile phone does not imply cultural homogenization (Appadurai 1997:11), because it stands in a complex interrelation with its environment.
The idea to systematically investigate the use of the mobile phone I had during my studies at Irkutsk University. The ubiquity of the mobile phone and the significance that was attributed to the technology surprised me and in several instances I was fascinated by the way it was used. To collect data for my master's thesis I conducted two months of ethnographic field research on the use of the mobile phone among Buryats in the Southeast of Russia in a town located in the autonomous Aginsk district near the border with Mongolia. This paper summarizes the main results of my thesis. Participant observation was an important method during my research...