Making Sense of Life's Transitions: Mobile Phones and the Creation of Alternative Spaces by South African Youths

Abstract

This article focuses on how South African youths from the town of Makhaza, Khayelitsha, who were transitioning from high school to tertiary education or full time employment, used their mobile phones. It also examines the meanings that the devices hold for them. Using 'space' as a key construct, the article relies on Victor Turner's theory of 'liminality', Michel Foucault's concept of heterotopias as conceptualized by Wearing and the power of contexts and spaces, to understand the uses of, and meanings ascribed to, mobile phones by youth in transition. These theoretical lenses allowed us to explore the way post-high school, unemployed youth use mobile media to resist subjectivities of inferiority, redefine themselves in the practice of their everyday lives, and expand their understanding of living in an increasingly networked world. The study found that the participants applied extensive ingenuity and creativity in the appropriation of mobile Internet technologies to configure their social surroundings in support of their interests, although they were not always able to channel these into developing opportunities for further study and work. © 2013 Mudra Institute of Communications.