Paper short abstract:

Using narrative ethnographic material from 24 fieldsites in Ghana, Malawi and South Africa, we report on young people’s creative use of cell-phone-based technologies to bridge gaps in formal health service access and to navigate increasingly complex, pluralistic and globalised therapeutic landscapes.

Paper long abstract:

The expansion of mobile phone use across Africa in the past decade has been remarkable in terms both of speed of adoption and spatial penetration; there are few areas of life that have not been affected. The potential of mobile phones to enhance healthcare provision, particularly in rural areas, has received much attention from international donors and policy-makers; one example among many is the use of text message-based systems in maternal healthcare which is now being widely adopted across the continent. The focus of this paper, however, is not on the 'formal' adoption of phone-based systems into healthcare, but rather on the myriad informal ways in which young Africans in particular are using mobile phones to access health information, advice and care. Examples include: browsing the internet on smart-phones for information on symptoms, calling into radio phone-in shows to consult healers (an issue particularly in Ghana where informal-sector healers broadcast regularly on local radio to promote their business), and receiving SMS health 'tips' and advertising (both solicited and unsolicited). Based on preliminary work in 24 field-sites in Ghana, Malawi and South Africa, we use narrative ethnographic material to explore young people's creative use of phone-based technologies to bridge gaps in formal health service access and to navigate increasingly complex, pluralistic and globalised therapeutic landscapes.