Digitalization in Africa: Pace, Challenges, Possibilities and Accomplishments

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Information and communication technologies (ICTs) impact has increased dramatically since the second half of the 20th century with accelerated pace since the beginning of the 21st century. The functioning of many social institutions and sectors such as education, the economy, health care, political process and various other areas were impacted by the increasing use of the technology with the expectation of efficacy. However, when the authorities of World Health Organization (WHO) declared on March 11, 2020, COVID-19 a pandemic, there was no common anticipation of the duration of the pandemic, its effects on of the functioning of all the sectors of society and the extraordinary acceleration of the digitalization albeit in a damage control and survival mode. One of the most striking upsurges of technology was in the education sector as school children and older learners were confined to their homes because of school closures due to lockdowns and curfews. Hence education had to be taught utilizing digital technologies. Efforts toward digitalization were already underway even before COVID-19, like the notable innovations of a cashless economy with the digitization of a well-known money transfer application known as M-Pesa, prevalent in East Africa and other similar smart phone transfer systems were being utilized throughout the entire African continent. In this advanced COVID-19 era, it has become now evident that careful and deliberate adoption of digitization is no longer a distant future: It is now. Throughout the semester, scholars from multiple disciplines will share their respective insights on the state and prognosis of the future in the digitalization era, in relation to: dimensions of the education systems, political processes, functioning of the domestic and global economy and specific business activities, healthcare provision and management, and forth.

2021 > Rwanda, United States, France, Canada > Directed by Saul Williams, Anisia Uzeyman
With Cheryl Isheja, Elvis Ngabo, Bertrand "Kaya Free" Ninteretse
A boisterous and idiosyncratic vision of Afrofuturist techno-revolution, in a tale of labor organization, intersexuality and cyberfeminism. From the mind of actress and playwright Anisia Uzeyman, and her husband, poet and rapper Saul Williams comes a queer sci-fi musical about hacking computers, gender, and reality itself that is as politically astute as it is artistically invigorating. Cosponsored by the Institute for African Development. Subtitled. More at www.kinolorber.com/film/view/id/5188
1 hr 45 min

Professor Kristen Harkness will discuss her book When Soldiers Rebel: Ethnic Armies and Political Instability in Africa (Cambridge University Press, 2018). The book argues that the processes of creating and dismantling ethnically exclusionary state institutions engender organized and violent political resistance. This explains both the motivations and timing of rebellion: while exclusionary institutions and group grievances may persist over many years, it is in brief and rare intervals that entire systems of ethnic privilege and disadvantage are created or destroyed.

Focusing on African militaries and when soldiers rebel against the state on ethnic grounds, it is shown that when leaders attempt to build ethnic armies, or dismantle those created by their predecessors, they provoke violent resistance from military officers. This poses a deep challenge to democratization, which has brought new leaders to power who threaten Africa’s legacy of ethnic armies.

Please join us for this virtual conversation. Register here.

About the Speaker

Dr. Kristen A. Harkness is a Senior Lecturer in the School of International Relations at the University of St. Andrews. Her research focuses on understanding how ethnicity shapes the loyalty and behavior of military institutions in Africa and has been funded by the British Academy.

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Presented by the Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies. Co-sponsored by the Institute for African Development and the Gender and Security Sector Lab.

A LACS Public Issues Forum in collaboration with the African Diaspora Knowledge Exchange Project

Two cases have become emblematic for understanding the intensification of racism and sexism in Brazilian society during the pandemic that killed more than 650,000 Brazilians and since the election of Jair Bolsonaro as President of Brazil. The first death recorded in Brazil by Covid-19 was a black woman, 63 years old, a domestic worker, contaminated by her employer; the second was the death of 5-year-old Miguel Otávio when he fell from the 5th floor of the building where his mother worked. Throughout this period, black women's movements carried out various face-to-face activities. They acted strongly through social networks, conducting campaigns to collect resources, clothes, and food and denouncing the violence and the neglect of President Bolsonaro's government concerning public policies to combat the pandemic. They participated in the political campaign of black women in the 2020 elections, such as the Marielle Franco Forum, ENEGRECER a Política, Black Women Decide, Eu Voto em Negra. This presentation considers the political setback and loss of rights in recent years and addresses the Brazilian socio-political context and the political response of black feminist organizations. I focus mainly on processes of knowledge production, institutional political dispute, and the confrontation of political gender violence. The data presented result from effective participation as an activist and researcher and the analysis of social media cards, lives, seminars, and webinars produced in the last two years.

Ângela Figueiredo, PhD. is a professor in the Social Sciences Department of the Federal University of Recôncavo da Bahia in Cachoeira-Bahia, Brazil (CAHL – UFRB); an associate of the Graduate Program in Ethnic and African Studies (POSAFRO) and the Postgraduate Program in Interdisciplinary Gender Studies (PPGNEIM) at the Federal University of Bahia. Dr. Figueiredo is also the coordinator of the research and activist group Collective Angela Davis. Dr. Figueiredo has produced two documentaries - Ebony Goddess (Deusa do Ébano, 2004) e Dialogues with the Secret (Diálogos com o Sagrado, 2013) and curated the Global African Hair exhibition that took place in Salvador, Bahia. She has published the following books: New Black Elites (Novas elites de cor, 2002), Black Middle Class (Classe média negra, 2012), Black Beauty (Beleza Negra, (2016). She has also written several articles on Black Feminism in Brazil, including "Decolonial Black Feminist Epistemology" (2021) and "Letter to Judith Butler from an ex-mulatto woman" (2016).

This LACS Public Issues Forum event was organized by the Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program (LACS) as part of Celebrating it's 60th Anniversary (1961-2021) in collaboration with the African Diaspora Knowledge Exchange Project..

This event was made possible by the generous support of Cornell’s College of Arts and Sciences, the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies, Romance Studies Department, Africana Studies and Research Center, Feminist Gender and Sexuality Studies (FGSS), the Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program, and the Anthropology Department.

Can't make it in person? Join us through eCornell, register at: https://ecornell.cornell.edu/keynotes/overview/K110322/

The annual International Fair showcases Cornell's global opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students. Explore the fair and find out about international majors and minors, language study, study abroad, funding opportunities, global internships, and more.

The International Fair is sponsored by the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies, the Office of Global Learning (both part of Global Cornell), and Cornell's Language Resource Center.