Paper short abstract:

This research investigates how the making of perceptible "site" enables, transmutes, and keeps alive the fantasy of futurist new city development in the condition of material scarcity in post-colonial Kenya.

Paper long abstract:

Like many other developmental projects in Kenya, the state-led smart city development- the Konza Technopolis was criticized as a “failed promise.” Yet despite a growing sense of disillusionment, the aspiration for a smart city never falls off. In this article, I explored the significance of a set of mundane practices - “site visit”- organized by the development authority of Konza Technopolis in restoring and upgrading the aspiration of smart city development in Kenya. Once a strategy for the development authority to attract potential investors, site visit gradually performs to resolve doubts and attract relevant stakeholders in the wake of growing critiques. By rendering the not-yet realized smart city physically near, site visit contributes to producing intersubjective spatiotemporal horizons which are constitutive to the rhythm of ICT driven development and the sociotechnical imaginary of the “Silicon Savannah” in post-colonial Kenya. Through analyzing site visits organized by the development authority from 2019 to 2021, I suggest that the post-colonial development in Kenya should not be simply taken as a technological or spatial fix on the part of capitalist regimes of different scale, speed, and intensity, but as the assemblage of intersubjective values produced in condensed spacetime as practiced on the ground.

Paper short abstract:

The connective ‘wiring’ of West African scholarly networks into the global science system is easily severed. This paper explores the circuit-breaking power of the Scopus and Web of Science citation indexes, and how African academic journals seek to rewire hegemonic circuits of academic knowledge .

Paper long abstract:

The connective ‘wiring’ of West African scholarly networks into the global science system is frayed and easily severed. As elsewhere in sub-saharan Africa, very few West African journals are indexed in Scopus or Web of Science (Harsh et al 2021, Boshoff and Akanmu 2020). Out of the 35,000 journals in Scopus, only twenty are published in Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy. Ghana has only six, and Senegal two. At the same time, many West African universities make ‘international’ journal publications a requirement for appointment and promotion (Omobowale 2010, Omobowale et al 2013, Mills et al 2022). This expectation sustains distinct publishing geographies, citation circuits and credibility economies (Shapin 1995). The global indexes act as ‘circuit-breakers’, isolating African technoscience. The region’s scholars are forced to choose between relevance or recognition (Nymanjoh 2004), between decolonial principles or career pragmatism, and between regional knowledge ecosystems or the metricised recognition of ‘globally’ connected journals.

In this presentation I explore the technical challenges facing African academic publishing infrastructures, showing how journals and publishers negotiate the evaluative practices and metricised assessments of the global citation indexes. At the same time, new digital spaces and infrastructures create opportunities for publishing hybrids and more accountable models of Open Access (Meagher et al 2019). I assess their potential to rewire existing academic publishing infrastructures and knowledge circuits.

Paper short abstract:

The paper examines latest discussions of German geoscientists around ‘responsible mining’ in Africa. Attempts of decolonizing technoscientific practice will be studied through the prism of the different arenas where professional subjectivities become expressed, discussed, and challenged.

Paper long abstract:

Although economic anthropology has increasingly responded to calls for “studying up” (Nader 1974) the extractive industries, so far comparatively little research has been conducted on the forms of mobility and subjectivities of the ‘technical’ personnel of multinational mining corporations. This article addresses the specific roles and responsibilities of white geoscientists and mining engineers leading the early phases of mining ventures in the Global South. In the globalized mining space, the latter are often considered as both developers of greenfield territories in the sense of extracting raw materials, and as first comers to represent a multinational company in a given local context. Within the profession, these thoroughly colonial imaginaries seem to be increasingly challenged by the emergence of ‘geoethics’. This professional ethics aims to reflect on the social, political and environmental implications of geoscientific thinking and practice, by advocating, for example, for the consideration of local and indigenous knowledge in mining policy. Based on a review of recent initiatives of German geologists addressing ‘responsible mining’ in African countries and word-wide, this paper discusses novel ways for studying up attempts to decolonize technoscientific practice. It does so by looking at how these questions are debated within research institutions, professional associations and policy forums based in the Global North. More specifically, it studies the German mining world whose protagonists are looking to resume a prominent role in the global metals mining sector.

Nader, L. 1974(1969) Up the Anthropologist — Perspectives Gained From Studying Up. In Dell Hymes(ed.) Reinventing Anthropology, New York:Vintage Books, pp.284-311.