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Paper short abstract:

DS-I Africa is a multi-million dollar initiative of the US National Institutes of Health. Its large scale, emphasis on African-led research, and vision of transformative impact, make it important to interrogate the future(s) of healthcare envisioned by the DSI-Africa framework and actors within it.

Paper long abstract:

DS-I Africa (Data Science for Health Discovery and Innovation in Africa) is a multi-million dollar initiative funded by the US National Institutes of Health, with the stated aim to “advance data science, catalyze innovation and spur health discoveries across Africa.” Since 2021, it has emerged as one of the major examples of an imagined future of African healthcare systems transformed by data science and AI, based on Africa-generated data sets analyzed by newly trained Africa-based researchers and healthcare professionals. I propose to address the imagined futures embedded in the institutional framework of DSI-Africa as well as the varied, emergent understandings of those involved with the research, training, and ethics hubs.

My positionality is that of a Europe-born anthropologist and Africanist with a prior research focus on epistemology and linguistic ideologies, who now works with AI researchers and clinicians, including those in the DSI-Africa UZIMA-DS project. Drawing on the concept of “administrative activism” (Di Leo 2018, Lehrer forthcoming), I analyze DSI-Africa as a prime example of a “science-first” futuristic understanding of how “transformed” healthcare systems on the continent could/should look. I simultaneously explore the tensions, constraints, and possibilities emerging from the vision and structures put in place by initiatives such as DSI-Africa, and ask how (far) we can push the boundaries of these institutional imaginations.

I am very interested in joining this panel as much as to present my analysis as to learn about alternative imaginations for the future of healthcare systems from fellow panelists, the moderators, and audience.