Africa in Theory: A Conversation Between Jean Comaroff and Achille Mbembe

Shipley, Jesse Weaver

doi:10.1353/anq.2010.0010

Cited by 46 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…Silicon Valley is also the site that exemplifies the promise of internet connectivity for widening access to global markets and materialising modern, global cities in record time (Carver, 2010;Engel, 2015;Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff, 1995;Heeks, 2007;Porter, 1998;Saxenian, 2006Saxenian, , 1994Steiber and Alänge, 2016;Wentland, 2016). These attributes are assumed to be universal, and Silicon is simply exemplary of them; an outlook that has received widespread acceptance and is generally taken for granted (Shipley, 2010;Mytelka, 2000) except in academic critical social science discourses.…”

Section: Narrative Infrastructures Of Arenas Of Technology Productionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Fabricating Silicon Savannah

Wahome

2023

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This PhD research thesis offers an historicised account of Silicon Savannah, a digital technology entrepreneurship arena in Nairobi, Kenya. Silicon Savannah is an opportunity to study the appropriation of technology innovation and commercialisation models in a lower income, developing economy. Fieldwork took place over 2015-6, a period when this embryonic 'arena of development ' (Jorgensen and Sorensen, 1999) is subject to scrutiny about its high, but largely unverified, hyped expectations. As a result, this thesis dwells on how actors develop strategies to adopt and adapt to processes over which they have no discretion.Actors in Silicon Savannah individually and collectively develop strategies and gaming systems for enacting legitimacy and attracting resources. The analytical frame reveals a dimension of persistent colonial modality inherent in the practice of global capitalism of which the digital economy and ICT developmental projects are a part. This is indicated in policy discourses of digital entrepreneurship that disclaim alternatives and multiplicities, and take for granted that there is a standardised typology of progress. The result is a paradox where entrepreneurs are incentivised to demonstrate alignment with discourses that might not reflect their experience.The study aims to produce a 'view from Nairobi' by integrating the interpretive frameworks of the subjects of the study with the researcher's analysis. Thus, it relies on ethnographic interviews and observations, and historical reconstruction using resources preserved in internet-based repositories like weblogs, emails and social media. Through this empirical work, this study makes several contributions to knowledge: First, it produces a rich historical account of Silicon Savannah as a zone of friction between ecologies of knowledge and practice. In this way, it is conversant with ethnographies of policy implementation and academic research interested in interactions between received prescriptions and local milieu.Second, it its discussion of actors' strategic use of 'narrative infrastructures' (Deuten and Rip, 2000) and engages with the use of narrative in the production of and practices in arenas of 7.3 Performative Technology Entrepreneurship.

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Section: Narrative Infrastructures Of Arenas Of Technology Productionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A key lesson is that theorising from Africa should not be an exercise in measuring the gaps between African places and some modern ideal (Shipley, 2010). Thereby, producing an account of what is not, rather than an account of what it is.…”

Section: Lessons From Silicon Savannahmentioning

confidence: 99%