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- Convenors:
-
Christine Hanke
(University of Bayreuth)
Natéwindé Sawadogo (Université Thomas SANKARA)
Jia-Hui Lee (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
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- Chair:
-
Cassandra Mark-Thiesen
(Africa Multiple Cluster, University of Bayreuth)
- Format:
- Panel
- Stream:
- Social media, archiving and ‘the digital’
- Transfers:
- Closed for transfers
- Location:
- S65 (RW I)
- Sessions:
- Tuesday 1 October, -
Time zone: Europe/Berlin
Short Abstract:
The interdisciplinary roundtable discusses and rethinks digital technologies, materialities and practices through and with African perspectives. Short inputs will be followed by a joint discussion with the audience.
Long Abstract:
The digital is an emerging space in which people regularly participate, a realm for representing our work and projecting versions of self. It is also a space where growing numbers of scholars of diverse disciplinary backgrounds find themselves actively studying questions around democracy, citizenship, privacy, education, etc. Digital application and platforms (including social media) have proliferated new communities and relationships, whether they be friendships, commercial transactions, audio and video calling, or movement building.
Discussions around digitality in the Global North have long fallen into a binary between utopian (democratization, prosumer activities, etc.) and dystopian (platform capitalism, surveillance, etc.) views. Nonetheless, despite the inequalities that accompany digitization processes globally, many scholars insist that its positive potential and general reach make them too great to ignore. The roundtable will critically explore these debates on digitality on the African continent by bringing together approaches in media studies, history, anthropology, and STS.
Some of the topics the roundtable will cover are labor and computing, the politics of data collection, tagging, and categorization, African epistemologies of the virtual and/or digital, as well as the material and environmental dimensions of digital technology (such as e-waste, data server cooling systems, fiber optic connectivity, cell towers, etc.). The roundtable discusses and rethinks digital technologies, materialities and practices through and with African perspectives. We are especially interested in how African experiences and epistemologies may challenge and/or forge new ways of understanding digital practices and materialities.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Tuesday 1 October, 2024, -Bright Alozie (Portland State University)
Paper short abstract:
Drawing on empirical evidence from social movements in Africa since 2010, I discuss the impact of digital primary sources on historical documentation to argue that social media offers unique perspectives and reliable records of these events, contributing to the preservation of African oral histories
Paper long abstract:
The potential for digital scholarship in African Studies is an important topic, particularly the use of social media to document contemporary social movements in Africa. This raises the question of whether there is a promising future for such digital scholarship endeavors in the field and how social media can be utilized to engender a deeper historiographical and methodological awareness of them as primary sources. Digging through several social media platforms and using empirical evidence from social movements across Africa since 2010, I discuss the impact of digital primary sources on the historical documentation of these movements. I argue that digital platforms provide African historians and scholars with a trove of raw materials that offer unique perspectives on these movements. The ability of social media to instantaneously capture and preserve real-time content means that researchers are provided with a reliable record of these events, allowing for a nuanced exploration of their societal impact and facilitating the digital preservation and documentation of African oral histories. Additionally, their integration as primary sources for social movements has also transformed the way historical information is accessed, bringing about a democratization of historical narratives, offering spaces for literary and textual experimentation, creating new identities, and amplifying previously marginalized voices and perspectives. In conclusion, I emphasize the need to approach social media critically as sources, considering their limitations as well as the opportunities they present, just as we would with other primary sources in African history.
Keywords: Social media, Africa, social movements, protests, primary sources, African studies
Olusegun Oladeinde (Bells University of Technology, Ota, Nigeria)
Paper short abstract:
As universities in Sub Sahara African countries continue to grapple with challenges of digitalization and equitable access to university education all aspects of academic and teaching activities in the universities are ‘governed’ by digital practices,with implications for knowledge production.
Paper long abstract:
As Higher Education (HE) system in Sub Sahara African countries continue to grapple with challenges of equitable access to university education; even with ‘limited-‘fiscus’, and the so called ‘reforms’ in the sector, all aspects of academic and teaching activities in the universities are being ‘governed’ by digitalization. In the ensuing context, implications remain for knowledge production, teaching and learning , world of work, and work activities in the universities. For the universities’ systems, work activities such as teaching, learning and conduct of other academic work are increasingly being ‘redirected’ and ‘pivoted’ on digital practices. While some semblance of on-line academic work may have been introduced, broadly, in the management of higher education, up to this moment, sufficient and deliberate institutional policy frameworks are just evolving in the universities in Nigeria to support digital learning. As the current situations of ’migration’ to on-line academic works are largely characterized with ‘panicky measures’ amidst the ‘austerity measures’, imperatives for digital skills, improved infrastructure, and equity access are more compelling with impact on Higher Education policy frameworks and delivery. However, this remains a challenge in the context of contemporary management of universities systems in Nigeria. This paper critically explores the implications and challenges of digital practices in the universities, in Nigeria. In utilizing much of Gramsci’s (hegemonic), and political economy analysis, it is demonstrated that as part of emblematic character of digital technology, there has been a phenomenal rise in digital inequalities, broadly; limiting equal access to digital practices and higher education in Nigeria.
Claudia Favarato (University of Bayreuth)
Paper short abstract:
I present an analysis of power relations in the digipolitical through the reading lenses of African communitarianism.
Paper long abstract:
How does relationality, a pillar of African communitarianism, play out in the digipolitical? The neologism digipolitical has its rationale in two aspects: the characters of the digitality, and the political subjects’ post-humanistic onto-relational nature. The digitality constitutes a tech-enabled, highly interactive cyber socio-political space, which offers the stage for encounters and relations among the digital ‘alter-ego’ of analogue individuals. These digital-humans epitomise an almost-autonomous instance of post-humanist existence and a new type of political subject. A political reading of their humanness can disclose the relational models ordering power and power relations among the digital-humans.
My contribution argues for an analysis of relationality in the digipolitical through the reading lenses of African communitarianism. The latter cherishes a relational approach to political ontologies and normativities, emphasising power structures of collaboration, cooperation, and mutuality, based on interdependency and communalism. A critical assessment of the reworkings of African-communitarian relationality in the digital reads many instances of contemporary virtual and analogue materialities.
The analysis builds a dialogue among political theory, African philosophy, and post-humanistic theories to discuss the ambivalent readings of communitarian relationality in the digital. Some scholars hail African communitarianism as the guideline for the digital-humanity, due to its humane tenets enabling the coexistence of human and non-human entities, including technology and the digital. Conversely, critics assert that the capitalist-driven big-tech companies’ agenda structures the digital, unescapably reducing the human to self-centred atomised units and displacing other-oriented political ontologies.
Evans Awuni (Universität Erfurt) Mohammed Mudasir Yussif (University for Development) Gift Mwonzora (University of Free State)
Paper short abstract:
Many African countries are beginning to tax the mobile money sector in an attempt to widen their tax net. We examine the drivers of the adoption intensity of electronic payment services contributing to understanding the FINTECH in Africa and providing implications for its taxation.
Paper long abstract:
Mobile money adoption and impact vary by sector, region and country across Africa. This study takes up the case of Ghana examining not only the drivers of adoption but also the intensity of adoption, and the qualitative reasons behind the adoption and non-adoption of mobile money services among the economically active population in Ghana. Mobile money prevalence in Ghana surpassed 38.5 million registered accounts and 17.1 million active accounts in 2020. The increasing adoption of mobile money in Ghana is partly linked to the mobile money interoperability implemented by the central bank in 2018, which allows for transactions across different telecommunication networks and linking mobile money to traditional bank accounts. Using novel field data comprising 1200 respondents from Ghana, it applies regression analysis and qualitative data mapping techniques to examine the factors influencing the adoption intensity of electronic payment services, contributing to the broader literature of digitalization and FINTECH in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and providing implications for public attitudes towards fintech policies such as the Electronic levy in Ghana. It lays the groundwork for service providers, regulators, policymakers and other stakeholders to understand not only what drives adoption decisions but also the intensity of use, which is more informative when adoption rates reach or surpass a critical mass.