Paper short abstract:

Decolonial debates about wired data infrastructures abound. This paper examines case studies where tensions, negotiations and compromises take place: data science capacity building, storage and transmitting infrastructures, and the accessibility of databases.

Paper long abstract:

Africa is entering the 4IR along with the rest of the world, but how, what and whose terms? ‘Wires’ are understood as hard and soft relations drawing disparate entities into communication. They also reveal Africa’s networked embeddedness in the world. Drawing from an examination of the wiring of data infrastructures, databases, data work and implementation, this paper identifies different relations that emerge from postcolonial turbulence that are drawn between Africa and the promise of Big Data as a way to solve problems, collect information, analyze it and use it. Data assemblages comprise a host of hardwired facilities such as remote sensing systems, data storage, fiberoptic cables, high-powered computers, analytics such as AI/ML/NLP systems as well as “softwires” such as social networking, funding, national interests, private actors, Panafricanist aspirations, development agendas, skills and capacity-building and so on. Decolonial debates about these wired and networked relations abound. This paper examines several case studies where such tensions, negotiations and compromises take place, looking specifically at data science capacity building, storage and transmitting infrastructures, and the accessibility of databases for data analytics purposes.