Paper short abstract:

In Kenya today the imperatives typically reserved by the state are the province of the country's largest corporation, Safaricom. We examine the dynamics of cryptopolitics by training attention on the rumors, accusations, and smears directed at the firm and its prominent executives.

Paper long abstract:

In Kenya, many of the imperatives typically reserved by the state are today the province of the country's largest corporation, Safaricom. Once a telecommunications firm, Safaricom is now responsible for tax collection, national security, and other social services. Even its commercial ventures like M-Pesa, a mobile money service, are understood to be in the interest of the nation-state, its citizens, and their developmental aspirations. This paper analyzes the dynamics of cryptopolitics in this new corporate-state dispensation. Drawing on the concept of cryptopolitics, which usefully points to the ambiguities of digital technologies, we examine the dynamics of dissent by training attention on the rumors, accusations, and smears directed at the firm and its prominent executives. Both the content of this discourse -- concerning questions of distribution, belonging, and authenticity -- and its form -- circulating on WhatsApp, blogs, and everyday conversations -- are indicative of the types of politics afforded by the rise of the corporate nation-state and the digital infrastructures undergirding it. But even more, they offer insight into the particular tropes and idioms through which technical faith, political loyalty, and commercial relations are judged to be trustworthy (or not) in contemporary Kenya, raising critical questions of regarding obligation and the contours of citizenship. In a context of frequent accusations of double-dealing, concealment, and hypocrisy, as well as insistent autochthonous claims to authenticity and legitimacy, we ask what paid protestors, defamation lawsuits, and cross-ethnic marriages tell us about who can successfully claim to speak on behalf of Kenya, Africa's "Silicon Savannah."