Grandparents, grandchildren and mobile phones in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

What kinds of access do elderly people in Kinshasa (DRC) have to new media, and in particular, to mobile phones? Surprisingly, instead of children providing their elderly parents with such devices, it is grandchildren who facilitate access, but sometimes in troubling ways, finds Katrien Pype. She is an anthropologist at the Institute for Anthropological Research in Africa at KU Leuven University and a Fellow at the Department of African Studies & Anthropology at the University of Birmingham. Katrien is interested in how people make sense of communication technologies in their daily lives and how it impacts urban lifeworlds.