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Book Review: 'The Politics Of Technology In Africa' by Iginio Gagliardone
Get PDFInformation and Communication Technologies (ICTs), in their advancement, have added a new dimension to development approaches and became a critical element in the integration of the developing world into the global knowledge society. This review explores Iginio Gagliardone´s book, The Politics of Technology in Africa, which provides a comprehensive account of ICT adoption and adaption in Ethiopia and an experimental framework for researching ICTs on the African continent, grounded in Hecht’s concepts of technopolitics and technopolitical regime. Drawing on the history of technology, international relations, African studies, and a decade of field research, the author´s alignment of the technological and political to study the relationship between development and ICT, not only challenges the assumption that African countries are passively accepting ICTs but also avoids the pitfalls of techno-determinism. Ethiopia, as the top “Official Development Assistance (ODA)” recipient in Africa and the staunchest advocate of an alternative development state for Africa, makes for an excellent case study and foregrounds a good presentation of the recipient/donor relationship, role of the state, African agency and communication strategies
The Technopolitics of the Ethiopian Nation
No full textThis chapter addresses how state actors in the developing world have influenced technology adoption and favoured the diffusion of certain uses of ICTs while discouraging others. Drawing upon extensive field research and looking at the evolution of ICTs in Ethiopia, it examines how a semi-authoritarian, yet developmentally oriented regime, has actively sought to mediate the – either real or imagined – destabilising aspects of ICTs while embracing them as a tool for nation-building. A constructivist framework as developed in international relations and history of technology is employed to understand how the introduction of the new ICT framework as promoted by international organizations has been mediated both by the results of the socialization of earlier technologies in Ethiopia and by the national project pursued by the local political elite.</jats:p
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