ELISA OREGLIA and KATHI KITNER [s2If is_user_logged_in()]Download PDF[/s2If] In rural China and India, a fragmented commercial distribution system and the lack of online shopping can significantly limit the range of consumer choice. In this paper, we look at the role that mobile phone shopkeepers—the middlemen—play in influencing what users can and will buy, but also in training them in using and understanding technology.[s2If !is_user_logged_in()] Sign in or create a free account to access this content and over 400 articles—the leading collection of peer-reviewed work on ethnographic practice.[/s2If][s2If is_user_logged_in()] [s2If is_user_logged_in()] INTRODUCTION The consumption junction is “the place and the time at which the consumer makes choices between competing technologies” (Cowan 1987:263). We take her insight that consumers’ choices are embedded in a “network of social relations that limits and controls the technological choices that she or he is capable of making” (Cowan 1987:262) and we apply it to...