Paper short abstract:

The paper provides an overview of the so-called use perspective in the history of technology with the purpose of demonstrating A) how this perspective can enrich the study of African urbanization and B) what historians of technology can learn from the scholarship on African urbanization

Paper long abstract:

In recent years historians of technology have shifted their focus from studying the innovation of new technology to historical perspectives that include also the use and maintenance of technologies. This change of perspective entails also a shift from studies of Large Technological Systems and Technology as an abstract entity to studies that explore the impact of specific technologies - small, old, mundane, "creole" (Edgerton) and "everyday" (Arnold) technologies that are in use widely in societies at given moments in history. At their best use perspectives on technology have fundamentally changed the historical timelines that structure narratives of technological development and modernity. Geographical assumptions about our technological infrastructures and trajectories are also challenged as innovation-centric narratives are supplemented by use-centric perspectives that adopt broader notions of technological agency, impact, and expertise. In this paper I present a review of the use perspective literature with the purpose of identifying A) specific ways in which the use perspective in the history of technology can enrich the study of African urbanization in historical and contemporary contexts and B) what historians of technology can learn from the scholarship on African urbanization. I argue that the use perspective has the potential to open a rich theoretical and empirical landscape for historians, anthropologists, STS scholars and others studying urbanization processes in African contexts.

Paper short abstract:

Which M-Health model can work as a link between urban based healthcare and rural areas, where health care is an urgent need.

Paper long abstract:

In this paper we will present the outcome of a qualitative research on the effects of m-health in different areas in West and Central Africa. The mobile in m-health refers to mobile devices like cell phones and e-microscope and e-ultrasound, and to mobility of personnel and equipment. The central question is which model of m-health is appropriate to link available health care that is often urban based to rural areas where health care is quasi absent. The project started in 2014 with the implementation of a sms-based connectivity system between laboratory personnel, a medical doctor, health workers and the population in a region in Southern Chad to treat Bilharziose (Schistomosiasis), a forgotten disease that causes many problems for children and the population in general. The project evaluates this pilot project. Next to this project an evaluation is made of different m-health projects in Mali and Ghana to compare results. The evaluation is made of the projects in their social, political and economic contexts. The empirical data will feed into the model of m-health that we would like to develop.

Paper short abstract:

In 2012 a public-private partnership was designed by facilitating salary payment via individual bank accounts. We show how the success of this policy was quite unevenly spread over the DRC territory and accentuated existing urban/rural disparities.

Paper long abstract:

Congolese teachers, like all public employees, used to receive their payments through networks of state intermediaries, until, in 2012 a public-private partnership was designed to improve payment modalities by facilitating payments via individual bank accounts.

To date, the Kabila government considers this "bancarisation" of public servants' salaries as one of its biggest successes, but this claim needs further scrutiny. Instead of focusing on "implementation gaps" and "reform failure", we start from the more intriguing question "What do these schemes do for different groups of people ?" (Murray Li, 2005). Murray Li focuses on the 'agency' of the "territory" and the political economy of generating and diffusing knowledge and information. (links with infrastructural power). Following her line of reasoning, the success of bancarisation depends in turn on some less visible but no less real technologies of governance that have undergirded real statehood. It goes without saying that these technologies are spread unevenly over the territory of the DRC, with the obvious implication that the bancarisation might sharpen the differences between the working circumstances of the urban and the rural teachers even more, and negatively effect precisely the least 'literate' regions.

In our research, we combine national-level and local-level data to add empirical flesh to these conceptual bones. Interviews have been carried out in Kinshasa, Lubumbashi and the rural territories of Haut-Katanga, at different periods during 2014-2016. This information is complemented with administrative documents and data. (this paper has been developed in co-operation with Stylianos Moshonas)

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Paper short abstract:

Given the fact that migrants today are mainly acting as “media migrants” this paper wants to analyze migrants’ digital journeys from Africa to Germany, the practices of mobile phones and social media usage before, during and after their migration.

Paper long abstract:

When the Syrian refugee Rodin Saouan managed to make a selfie with Angela Merkel in September 2015 it had an enormous impact. Saouan sent the picture to his parents as a sign for his safety, the refugee selfies went around the world and Saouan as other refugees became celebrities, the icon of the refugee savior "Mama Merkel" was born.

The example does not only stand for the enormous effect of medially distributed images but shows as well that migrants today are mainly acting as "media migrants" (Hepp et al 2011).

Considering that digital media through their instant availability and viral distribution do function as distance bridges for "people on the move" (Massey et al. 1998), the paper wants to look at the role of social media as a tool for future-making as well as trust generators in migration decisions.

With the examples of migrants' digital journeys from Africa to Germany, the paper wants to unravel how social media offer and influence imaginations of abroad and in this way influence migration decisions as well as analyze the practices of mobile phones and social media usage before, during and after their journeys to Germany.

In tracing these digital journeys, the paper aims to shed light on the role of new media in contemporary African migration practices as well as the emerging "media cultures of migration".