2020
DOI: 10.1002/pra2.298
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Making as imaginative crossroads: Ghanaian makers and the geopolitics of technological progress

Abstract: This paper is about the politics of technological progress as it is being played out among a loose network of Ghanaian makers. It unpacks how the practice of ‘making’ unfolds as a site for positioning the self and the nation within a global imaginary of techno futures. The paper argues, first, that ‘making’ in Ghana is emblematic of a crossroads of imaginative possibilities for technological design and production, and second, that this marks a distinct turn in the politics of technological progress, particular… Show more

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Cited by 24 publications
(6 citation statements)
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“…We do not propose that technoliberal discourses float around the world in ready-made forms (Avle et al 2020;Atanasoski and Vora 2018). 4 Instead, we illustrate how globalizing discourses are made workable in local contexts (Avle 2020;Beltrán;Ames 2019;Irani 2019;Chan 2013), showing how they are articulated and the ideals they represent put into practice by researchers working in Ugandan universities. In advancing this approach, we closely follow a group of female computing researchers and adopt "feminist theorizations of affect and care to expound the everyday practices that enable surviving and thriving in the face and in the wake of techno-empires" (Jack and Avle 2021, 2).…”
Section: Introductionmentioning
confidence: 88%
“…We do not propose that technoliberal discourses float around the world in ready-made forms (Avle et al 2020;Atanasoski and Vora 2018). 4 Instead, we illustrate how globalizing discourses are made workable in local contexts (Avle 2020;Beltrán;Ames 2019;Irani 2019;Chan 2013), showing how they are articulated and the ideals they represent put into practice by researchers working in Ugandan universities. In advancing this approach, we closely follow a group of female computing researchers and adopt "feminist theorizations of affect and care to expound the everyday practices that enable surviving and thriving in the face and in the wake of techno-empires" (Jack and Avle 2021, 2).…”
Section: Introductionmentioning
confidence: 88%
“…… It's no longer about sitting down and having Westerners come in to the continent to do charity. (Gregory Rockson cited in Avle andLindtner 2016: 2233) In Part I, I elaborate in detail how the practices of building technology and telling stories about tech development are used to (try to) turn the dominant innovation discourse upside down and to position Kenya as a place for technology production. Here, I briefly introduce two self-ascriptions of entrepreneurs that deny passivity and dependence; local expertise, and the ability to care for local communities.…”
Section: …With a Decolonial Agendamentioning
confidence: 99%
“…With the awareness of the primacy given to newness as a rhetorical object of modernity [122], one can identify how the evolution of HCI, from its faces (human, technical artefacts, and context of use [78]) to its big questions (language of study, term of study, and object of study [31]) and grand challenges [169] adopt a universalised consensus towards its corpus. What is of relevance here is showing how the big questioning of HCI that focuses attention on the specific genre of man-as-human, technological artefact and embodiment of interactivity can engage with the geopolitics of innovation as applied to the context of Africa [26,27]. This might lead to the question of whether African HCI researchers and practitioners ought to have critical reflections on what its big questions are or might be which could be about the historical forces at work in responding to the implications of branching out from Here to There in HCI.…”
Section: Human-computer Interaction For Developmentmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Adding onto how specific cultures might have defuture the African personalities knowing of the present is showing how specific African designs have intervened in changing the organisation of resources, expertise, labour, capital, and power. Although there is an acknowledgement of how creativity has been championed in informal spaces, researchers in HCI have studied and documented the work practices of tech hubs, start-ups, and tech companies (e.g., [6,26,27]). Others have focused on how challenges of modernity can be reconstituted as sites for ideating and creating sustainable innovation [142] be it through critical thinking or in critical engagement with communities [160] A classic example is the work of Dayo Olapade which showcases ways in which the informal sector in Africa dissolves Western ideals of creativity and innovation, in both economic and political terms.…”
Section: Futuring In African Cultures Of Designmentioning
confidence: 99%
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