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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.