Hans Peter Hahn is professor of cultural anthropology a Goethe-University, Frankfurt a.M. /Germany. He also studied and teached at the African Studies Centre at Bayreuth University. Between 2000 and 2007, Hahn was participating in a research project on “Global Influences on  Local Agency in Africa”. Among the numerous publications that resulted from this project, the most important deal with the use and consumption of the mobile phone in Africa. His theoretical interest focusses on globalization and material culture. Both fields merge in his recent publications on water (“People at the well”, 2012) and urbanism (“Urban life worlds in motion”, 2013). The shared point of view of these edited volumes is an extended understanding of the mobility of things and ideas; on how they are changing the people’s ways of life, their expectations for the future and their perceived needs and desires. The question on how the mobility of things can transform societies as well as individuals is also the topic of his most recent publication (Mobility of Things, 2013).