Paper short abstract:

Drawing from ethnographic inquiry on digital maternal health technology deployed in Zambia, physical and metaphysical inequalities presented by digital technologies include language literacy, ICT infrastructure and the precedence of biomedicine coded into technology apps over other aetiologies.

Paper long abstract:

Digital technologies in Southern Africa addressing issues such as healthcare, peer-to-peer transactions, transportation, banking, and others alike have offered alternative means of completing tasks, providing service, and improving connectivity. In a space bearing the effects of colonialism and poor governance, this region, however, presents myriad inequalities affecting the utilisation and accessibility of such technology. Focusing on digital technology addressing maternal health in Zambia, this paper draws from ethnographic insights to show the breadth of inequalities impacting users’ accessibility to and usability of technology that serves them. Several inequalities can be gleaned from the adoption of a maternal health app used predominantly in urban Lusaka, which encompass language and literacy, ICT infrastructure, and limited epistemological coding of the app. Multiple languages exist in Zambia, and although the support of apps is translated into a few vernacular languages, this overlooks other literacies such as users’ ability to read. Fragmented ICT infrastructure points to socio-economic differences across users, their device models, and Internet accessibility depending on users’ location. One area of inequality rarely discussed points to coded technology supporting health using biomedicine to frame well-being despite the existing medical plurality in communities. The precedence of biomedicine in digital health marginalises or excludes other aetiologies of care, providing space to epistemologically interrogate the accessibility of digital technology in a diverse space. This discussion thus unpacks the physical and metaphysical inequalities presented by digital technologies that serve a Southern African community despite purported benefits.