ICTs in the Contemporary World seminar

Theories of Value and the Jamaican Mobile Phone

Daniel Miller
University College London

Monday 29 January, 2007
5.00 - 7.00 p.m.


Fifth Floor, Tower One

This paper presents material from a year's ethnographic study of the impact of the mobile phone on low income Jamaicans carried out by Daniel Miller with Heather Horst. The concerns range from the degree to which it enables people to increase their income to its more general effect on social networking and relationships. It also examines the specific relationship between the cost of the phone call and the evaluation of social networks.

This leads onto a brief discussion of an alternative theory of value which is based not on finding some baseline source of value but rather on examining how people use the concept of value in daily life.

Daniel Miller is Professor of Material Culture in the Department of Anthropology at University College, London. He is the author of 'The Dialectics of Shopping' and the editor of the four volume series 'Consumption'.

Please note places will be available on a first-come-first-serve basis - registration is not required.

For any further queries regarding this seminar or to request information about future events please contact Frances White, Research Coordinator

Page last updated 17 October 2007

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