Burrell argues for looking at multiple scales in a “spiral” when “accounting for the materialization of technologies in global peripheries”(20): starting with the human-machine interface (micro), then expanding to second-order sensemaking (meso), then finally considering the political economy (macro). The chapters are organized starting at the center of the spiral and moving up and out in scale.
The first chapters focus on the scale of the human-machine interface, where Burrell develops participant observations and interviews from time spent in cafes, discussing what participants were doing online and focusing on scamming activities carried out by the youth. Interviews and observations from other contexts inform the second-order sensemaking chapters, which focuses on rumors, morality, and religion around Internet use. When considering the political economy in the final chapters, Burrell develops material from her attendance at the World Summit for the Information Society held in Accra and her observations and interviews with secondhand computer importers.
