What Do Science, Technology, and Innovation Mean from Africa?

by Clapperton Chakanets Mavhunga (Editor)

Overview

Explorations of science, technology, and innovation in Africa not as the product of “technology transfer” from elsewhere but as the working of African knowledge.

In the STI literature, Africa has often been regarded as a recipient of science, technology, and innovation rather than a maker of them. In this book, scholars from a range of disciplines show that STI in Africa is not merely the product of “technology transfer” from elsewhere but the working of African knowledge. Their contributions focus on African ways of looking, meaning-making, and creating. The chapter authors see Africans as intellectual agents whose perspectives constitute authoritative knowledge and whose strategic deployment of both endogenous and inbound things represents an African-centered notion of STI. “Things do not (always) mean the same from everywhere,” observes Clapperton Chakanetsa Mavhunga, the volume's editor. Western, colonialist definitions of STI are not universalizable.

The contributors discuss topics that include the trivialization of indigenous knowledge under colonialism; the creative labor of chimurenga, the transformation of everyday surroundings into military infrastructure; the role of enslaved Africans in America as innovators and synthesizers; the African ethos of “fixing”; the constitutive appropriation that makes mobile technologies African; and an African innovation strategy that builds on domestic capacities. The contributions describe an Africa that is creative, technological, and scientific, showing that African STI is the latest iteration of a long process of accumulative, multicultural knowledge production.

Contributors
Geri Augusto, Shadreck Chirikure, Chux Daniels, Ron Eglash, Ellen Foster, Garrick E. Louis, D. A. Masolo, Clapperton Chakanetsa Mavhunga, Neda Nazemi, Toluwalogo Odumosu, Katrien Pype, Scott Remer

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780262342339
Publisher:	MIT Press
Publication date:	06/16/2017
Series:	The MIT Press
Sold by:	Penguin Random House Publisher Services
Format:	eBook
Pages:	256
File size:	4 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Clapperton Chakanetsa Mavhunga is Associate Professor of Science, Technology, and Society at MIT. He is the author of Transient Workspaces: Technologies of Everyday Innovation in Zimbabwe and the editor of What Do Science, Technology, and Innovation Mean from Africa?, both published by the MIT Press.

Clapperton Chakanetsa Mavhunga is Associate Professor of Science, Technology, and Society at MIT. He is the author of Transient Workspaces: Technologies of Everyday Innovation in Zimbabwe and the editor of What Do Science, Technology, and Innovation Mean from Africa?, both published by the MIT Press.

Has two university addresses

Table of Contents

Preface ix

Introduction: What Do Science, Technology, and Innovation Mean from Africa? Clapperton Chakanetsa Mavhunga 1

1 The Place of Science and Technology in Our Lives: Making Sense of Possibilities D. A. Masolo 29

2 The Language of Science, Technology, and Innovation: A Chimurenga Way of Seeing from Dzimbahwe Clapperton Chakanetsa Mavhunga 45

3 The Metalworker, the Potter, and the Pre-European African "Laboratory" Shadreck Chirikure 63

4 Plants of Bondage, Limbo Plants, and Liberation Flora: Diasporic Reflections for STS in Africa and Africa in STS Geri Augusta 79

5 Smartness from Below: Variations on Technology and Creativity in Contemporary Kinshasa Katrien Pype 97

6 On the Politics of Generative Justice: African Traditions and Maker Communities Ron Eglash Ellen K. Foster 117

7 Making Mobiles African Toluwalogo Odumosu 137

8 Innovation for Development: Africa Garrick E. Louis Neda Nazemi Scott Remer 151

9 Science, Technology, and Innovation in Africa: Conceptualizations, Relevance, and Policy Directions Chux Daniels 169

References 187

Contributors 225

Index 227