TY - JOUR
T1 - Situating science in Africa
T2 - The dynamics of computing research in Nairobi and Kampala
AU - Harsh, Matthew
AU - Holden, Kerry
AU - Wetmore, Jameson
AU - Zachary, G. Pascal
AU - Bal, Ravtosh
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors extend their deepest gratitude to the computer scientists and entrepreneurs who agreed to participate in the research. Their time and insights made this paper possible. We would also like to thank members of the LOST research group in the Department of Anthropology at Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg for their reading and comments of an earlier draft of the paper. Finally, our thanks go to two anonymous referees for their comments, which undoubtedly made the paper stronger and more robust. This work was supported by the United States National Science Foundation (grant number 1257145) and the Economic and Social Research Council of the United Kingdom (grant number ES/L010704/1). Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation or the Economic and Social Research Council.
Funding Information:
This work was supported by the United States National Science Foundation (grant number 1257145) and the Economic and Social Research Council of the United Kingdom (grant number ES/L010704/1). Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation or the Economic and Social Research Council.
Funding Information:
June 2015. Makerere University. Dr Julianne Sansa-Otim, a computer scientist based at Makerere University in Kampala hosts a two-day workshop to discuss her research. The recipient of a generous grant from the Norwegian development agency, Sansa-Otim aims to use computer science to improve weather management in Uganda and she will accomplish this by building up a scientific team at Makerere made up, in this initial stage, of eight PhD students with full time scholarships. The room is crammed full. A wide cross-section of professionals from academia, policy and media listen attentively to Sansa-Otim and her team present their progress across the four areas of the project: prediction, data density, repositories and dissemination. There is a discernible air of excitement about this project, and some signs of regret that other donors do not think so strategically about their investments deepening science and nurturing talent. The excitement is drawn across a future where climate and agricultural data will become valuable resources in a world confronted by increasing scarcity and warming. While Sansa-Otim is one of a handful of recognizable star computer scientists, there is an appetite for more of these showcase projects and the kinds of scientific knowledge and communities they foster.
Funding Information:
One of the collaborating Principal Investigators, Peter Wagacha, professor and coordinator of the PhD program in computer science at the University of Nairobi, introduced us to the Digital Matatus project.10 Designed in partnership with US universities and funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, the goal of the project was to create a digital map of Nairobi’s informal, private, paratransit matatu bus system. Wagacha oversaw data collection that took two years to complete – by master’s students at the University of Nairobi boarding matatus and using the GPS on their phones to track routes. Wagacha then applied his expertise in machine learning (previously applied to other areas such as natural language processing) to design algorithms to help create the map itself.
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2019.
PY - 2019/2/1
Y1 - 2019/2/1
N2 - Since the turn of the century, both Kampala and Nairobi have experienced a dramatic growth of computer science research, challenging accepted views of science in Africa. We deploy qualitative methods to follow active computer science researchers, graduate students, policy makers, administrators and entrepreneurs, in order to understand how computer science is enacted in these two cities. Our analysis focuses on four interrelated areas of labor, institutions, identities and scale. We illustrate the dynamics and frictions of computer science research across these areas, revealing the interlacing of moral economies of science and the political economy of higher education, the management of precarious professional lives and desire to get research done, and the pluralistic imaginations and multiple scales of computer science. Urban centers in East Africa are increasingly active in supporting granular and connective research communities that are socially transformative in ways that challenge conventional views of Africa as technologically dry. In this way, the computer science communities of Nairobi and Kampala are instructive for thinking about new geographies of science and technology studies.
AB - Since the turn of the century, both Kampala and Nairobi have experienced a dramatic growth of computer science research, challenging accepted views of science in Africa. We deploy qualitative methods to follow active computer science researchers, graduate students, policy makers, administrators and entrepreneurs, in order to understand how computer science is enacted in these two cities. Our analysis focuses on four interrelated areas of labor, institutions, identities and scale. We illustrate the dynamics and frictions of computer science research across these areas, revealing the interlacing of moral economies of science and the political economy of higher education, the management of precarious professional lives and desire to get research done, and the pluralistic imaginations and multiple scales of computer science. Urban centers in East Africa are increasingly active in supporting granular and connective research communities that are socially transformative in ways that challenge conventional views of Africa as technologically dry. In this way, the computer science communities of Nairobi and Kampala are instructive for thinking about new geographies of science and technology studies.
KW - Africa
KW - computer science
KW - identity
KW - institutions
KW - labor
KW - postcolonial technoscience
KW - scale
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85061670681&partnerID=8YFLogxK
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U2 - 10.1177/0306312719829595
DO - 10.1177/0306312719829595
M3 - Article
C2 - 30803357
AN - SCOPUS:85061670681
SN - 0306-3127
VL - 49
SP - 52
EP - 76
JO - Social Studies of Science
JF - Social Studies of Science
IS - 1
ER -