African Histories of the Internet

• In Event: Why Internet Histories, Now?

Abstract

Studies of the Internet in Africa often adopt one of several positions: a celebratory view of Internet adoption and adaptation; transmission models assessing the impact of ICT for Development, or political economic critiques that focus on the various obstacles to Internet access. The result of these theoretical and methodological differences is that histories of the Internet in Africa often succumb to a teleological narrative of progress and development.

This paper will argue the need for a theoretical and methodological approach to African histories of the Internet that moves beyond singular questions of access, adoption or development. Instead, it will call for a multi-levelled historiographical approach that incorporates these indicators as well as attention to the cultural dynamics and materiality of mobile phones in everyday life in African societies.

Author

• Herman Wasserman, U of Cape Town