African Digital Policies and Future Imaginaries

Speakers: 

• Janine Patricia Santos (KU Leuven): "Making ‘desirable’ digital futures: La jeunesse numérique and Lomé’s digital transformation".
• Charlotte Escorne (Université Paris 8, IFG Lab, GEODE) : "The Senegalese cyber strategy under President Macky Sall. Digital development at the heart of issues of influence, control and power"

Discussant : Camille Chanial (Medialab, Sciences Po).

In current scholarly and media discourses on digital technologies in Africa, there seems to be what Kanyinsola Obayan, researcher of Nigerian computer history, calls a “hypervisibility of innovation from Africa and the Global South”. This hypervisibility is, on the one hand, a chance for new approaches like the indigenisation of digital innovations and the decolonisation of tech tools; on the other hand, it seems to reproduce old promises of technology as a one-size-fits-all solution to development issues, inequalities, and the environment. This form of technosolutionism is heavily invested in by African public and private actors, technologies being deemed as solutions to the continent’s challenges : tackling social inequalities, climate change, youth unemployment, state-building, or the advent of the old “Africa Rising” narrative. 

Taking a critical perspective, this seminar will ask about desirable futures for digital technologies as imagined and practised by and for Africans. By bringing together scholars in a monthly series of paper presentations and discussions on the current landscape of digital technologies and their impact in and on Africa, the seminar aims to lead to a critical reflection on current tech developments and possible futures on the continent.

The seminar will bring together scholars working on topics ranging from African entrepreneurship and tech innovations, to technologies in state-building, digital modernity, and new forms of subjectivisation, technologies, and education and AI from African perspectives. It intends to provide a space of exchange, especially for young and emerging scholars, to collectively reflect on a critical approach towards digital technologies in Africa, possible digital futures, and a decolonisation of digital technologies.

Each session will feature two scholars presenting their work (20 min), followed by a comment of a discussant (15 min) and a round for questions and discussion (20 min). The seminar will take place in a hybrid format on Zoom and on-site at Sciences Po Paris.