Exploring farmers’ access to resources via networks in most remote rural areas with mobile phone reception: A case of a mountain tribe in south India

Abstract

Inhabitants of the most remote areas tend to have low access to information and resources potentially contributing to well-being . Ongoing expansion of ICTs deeper into rural areas is expected to improve this situation by enabling them to contact geographically distant others. We interviewed 79 women and men in a n indigenous tribe in the mountains of Tamil Nadu, India, where explosively expanding mobile phone signal entered prior to other types of infrastructure , and we inductively developed a scale for assessment of the inhabitants’ overall access to valued resources through their personal networks. It was found that the mobiles contributed primarily to the maintenance of existing networks and to speedier mobilization of already accessible resources . However, since the phone owners called only with people whom they already knew well, they did not expand their networks nor increased their overall access resources.