This book argues that the fourth industrial revolution, the process of accelerated automation of traditional manufacturing and industrial practices via digital technology, will serve to further marginalise Africa within the international community.
In this book, the author argues that the looting of Africa that started with human capital and then natural resources, now continues unabated via data and digital resources looting. Developing on the notion of "Coloniality of Data", the fourth industrial revolution is postulated as the final phase which will conclude Africa's peregrination towards recolonisation. Global cartels, networks of coloniality, and tech multinational corporations have turned big data into capital, which is largely unregulated or poorly regulated in Africa as the continent lacks the strong institutions necessary to regulate the mining of data. Written from a decolonial perspective, this book employs three analytical pillars of coloniality of power, knowledge and being.
Highlighting the crippling continuation of asymmetrical global power relations, this book will be an important read for researchers of African studies, politics and international political economy.
Author(s): Everisto Benyera
Series: Routledge Contemporary Africa
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2021
Language: English
Pages: 212
City: London
Cover
Half Title
Series Information
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Table of Contents
Foreword
Preface
Acronyms
Acknowledgements
1 Data Coloniality: A Decolonial Perspective of Africa and the 4IR
Introduction
Decoloniality: Affirming a Concept
Coloniality of Data
Decolonisation as a Myth and the Elusiveness of Epistemic Freedom
The Myth of D4D: Data for Development as Coloniality of Data
The 4IR and the Resilience of Colonialism
Organisation of the Book
Note
2 Historicising Africa’s Subjugation
Introduction
Where It All Began: Africa’s Conquest
The Genealogy of Africa’s Colonisation
3 Contextualising the Colonial project in Africa
Introduction
Hunters and Traders: Missionaries as the Link
Capitalism as Destructive Extractivism
The Empire and African States Without De Facto Sovereignty
The Consolidation of Coloniality in Africa
Africa’s Cyberspace as Terra Nullius, Res Nullius, and Tabula Rasa
Of the Two Triads Plus China and the Squeezing of Africa
China’s (re)colonisation: He Who Owns the Debt controls the Continent
China’s Growing Political Capital in Africa
America’s War On Terror as a Cover for the (re)colonisation of Africa
4 Data Mining, Harvesting, and Datafication
“To Every Birth Its Blood”: To Every Industrial revolution Its Death
Data as a Raw Material
Coloniality of Data and Technical Rationality
Consistent Extraction and Pilfering African Resources
Decentring and Dispossessing Throughout the Industrial Revolutions
Africa and Data Slavery
“If You’re Not Paying for It, You Are the Product”
The Data-Coloniality Nexus: Vladmir Lenin Revisited
Data Colonialism and Multilateralism
Whose Data Is It Anyway?
Data Storage: Who Is Responsible for Storing Data?
Note
5 Networks, Big Data, and data Coloniality: Whither Africa’s Sovereignty?
Introduction
Political, Economic, and Epistemological (re)colonisation
On Colonialism, Decolonisation, Coloniality, and (re)colonisation
Colonial Networks
Of the Cross: On Religious Networks
Of the Dollar: Financial Networks
Of the Mighty: Imperial Networks
Epistemological Networks
Products of the 4IR: Networks and Big Data
How Will Africa Lose Its Sovereignty in the 4IR
Over-integrated Euro-North America and the challenges of (un)integrating
Conclusion
6 The 4IR as the Mother of All Destructions and Accumulations
Introduction
Africa and the 4IR: Whither Africa?
The Logic of Western Accumulation
The Benefits of the 4IR to Humanity
Even Marx and Marxists Love the 4IR: For Different Reasons
Capitalist Accumulation and the Destruction of non-Western Epistemologies
Accumulating What? Wealth for West, Poverty for the Rest
Digital Inequality and Digital Slavery as a Result of digital Accumulation
The 4IR and the Never-Ending Reinvention of Africa
7 Mapping Africa’s Destiny in the Fourth Industrial Revolution
Introduction
Deindustrialisation, More Unemployment, and wider, Deeper Poverty in 4IR Africa
4IR Sovereignty and Human Rights Reconceptualised
Artificial Intelligence and the 4IR: A Political Perspective
Disruptions as the Sine Qua Non for Revolutions
Welcome Robo-Humans and Robo-Humans-Trans-Humans: The New family Members
Cyborgs, Trans-Humans, Extropianism, and the uploading of Immortality
Tracing Africa’s Vulnerability to (re)colonisation
4IR as An African Problem: On Ota Benga’s Omnipresent Fate
The Weaponisation of Citizenship in the 4IR
The Five Monopolies of Capitalism: Cementing the Fate of Africa in the 4IR
Africa, the 4IR, and the Matthew Effect
8 Africa’s Eunuch Condition and the Omnipresent Footprints of the Four Industrial Revolutions
Introduction
The Logics of Revolutions
Revolutionary Winners and Losers
Many and Endless Societal Transitions
Africa Into the 4IR: Entering a Revolution without An Ideology
Genocide as the Underwriters of Revolutions
Personal Data: The New Oil and Gold
Can Africa Fight Back?
Africa: What Is to Be Done?
Forward With Data Localisation
Note
References
Index
