IMTFI Researchers Report on Findings from Workshop on "Landscaping Mobile Social Media and Mobile Payments in Indonesia"

Tom Boellstorff and his team offer here a series of reflections on the research resulting from their project on mobile technology, social media, and payments in Indonesia." This report, which precedes the project's final report, draws on insights emerging from the workshop “Landscaping Mobile Social Media and Mobile Payments in Indonesia,” which took place in Surabaya, Indonesia, on September 28 and 29, 2012.  

Image from a shopping mall in Surabaya. Photo credit: Tom Boellstorff

Key insights, about which the team is currently completing additional research, include the following:

1) The dominance of BlackBerry

2) The importance of providers and websites  

3) Place and time

4) Risk and reward 

Click here for full summary of insights emerging from the workshop “Landscaping Mobile Social Media and Mobile Payments in Indonesia,” which took place in Surabaya, Indonesia, on September 28 and 29, 2012.

Click here for the previous Interim Report by Tom Boellstorff and IMTFI Director Bill Maurer, published October 31, 2012.

Tom Boellstorff is Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Irvine. His research interests include contemporary Indonesian society (where he has conducted ethnographic research since 1992) and digital culture. His books, among others, include Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human (2008) and with Bonnie Nardi, Celia Pearce, and T.L. Taylor, Ethnography and Virtual Worlds: a Handbook of Method (2012).