Histories of Technology and the Environment in Post/Colonial Africa: Reflections on the Field

Abstract

Much has happened since Dipesh Chakrabarty, at the turn of the millennium, paradigmatically called for a “provincialization of Europe”. The paper connects with three major trends in current history of technology, exploring these threads with regards to the Global South in general and post/colonial Africa in particular: (1) exemplifying and (later) disentangling transnational connections; (2) rethinking (colonial) infrastructures; and (3) exploring technologies-in-use, everyday practices and perceptions. Unpacking established Science and Technology concepts such as Thomas P. Hughes “Large (Socio)Technical Systems” (LTS) approach for post/colonial contexts, the paper argues that we need to move beyond the much-invoked “key figures” and drivers of global technological (ex)change and scrutinize place- and time-specific landscapes of technology instead. In particular, we need to pay closer attention to seemingly peripheral actors and actants as well as to the manifold interrelations between the human and the “natural” world.

History from Scratch: Introduction to the Special Issue

“…Ute Hasenöhrl writes about Histories of Technology and the Environment in Post/colonial Africa [3]. She is scanning both a large field and a large continent with her core question: "How did technologies and the environment shape human life (and vice versa) and how did those experiences compare for different social groups and societies?".…”