Digital Infrastructures and Social Practice: An Ethnography of Connectivity and Exclusion in Rural Guinea-Bissau

The expansion of digital infrastructures into rural Africa is often framed as a straightforward path to development, yet the lived experiences of integration and the persistence of exclusion remain under-examined in West African contexts. This study aims to ethnographically document and analyse the social practices, perceptions, and structural conditions shaping digital connectivity and its absence in a rural setting, moving beyond binary notions of access. A 14-month immersive ethnography was conducted in two rural villages, employing participant observation, in-depth interviews, and digital practice diaries with residents, community leaders, and mobile network agents. Findings reveal that while mobile internet coverage was technically present, substantive engagement was mediated by a complex ecology of cost, literacy, and social negotiation. A dominant theme was the strategic pooling of resources to purchase data, which simultaneously reinforced existing kinship bonds and created new dependencies. Approximately 70% of interviewees described connectivity as a sporadic luxury rather than a utility. Digital inclusion is a deeply relational and materially constrained process, where infrastructural presence does not equate to meaningful integration, often reproducing pre-existing social and economic hierarchies. Policy should shift from a focus on infrastructure rollout to supporting community-managed access models and digital literacy programmes embedded in local social structures. Regulatory frameworks must address predatory pricing for prepaid data in rural areas. digital divide, ethnography, mobile technology, West Africa, social practice, infrastructure, exclusion This paper provides a novel, practice-centred analysis of the digital divide, demonstrating how connectivity is socially orchestrated and contested within kinship networks, thereby challenging top-down models of digital diffusion.