Cell Phones in Papua New Guinea Used to Call Dead People | New Republic - 1 views
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We often fret that we’re too attached to our smartphones or that we let them wield too much influence over our lives. But our reverence for technology is relative. In the remote Ambonwari society of Papua New Guinea, villagers believe that cell phones are extensions of their human owners and can be used to commune with the departed.
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When their calls don’t go through, they don’t blame shoddy service or wrong numbers; they believe the spirits of the dead can interfere with their connections.
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They haven’t had time to develop telephone etiquette have, either. Back in Slovenia, Telban’s phone rings nonstop. “They really love just to ring me,” he said. He never knows who’s calling, since villagers share the phones, and as soon as he answers, the other person hangs up: They don’t have enough credit for an actual conversation. But Telban doesn’t mind. “They are my friends,” he said. “They’re just saying hello.”
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By the way, there is a whole special issue on mobile phones in The Australian Journal of Anthropology which has just been published. The research on which this article was based is on of them. The current link for an "early view" is here: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1757-6547/earlyview