The Data Revolution in African Economic History

Economic History of Developing Regions, 2019

2012

The field of African economic history is in resurgence. This paper reviews recent and on-going research contributions and notes strengths in their wide methodological, conceptual and topical variety. In these strengths there is also a challenge: different methodological approaches may also result in divisions, particularly on the quantitative versus qualitative axis. The African Economic History Network has recently been formed to bridge the gap between methods and sources and to facilitate intellectual exchanges among the widest possible range of scholars working on Sub-Saharan economic history. This paper outlines current research projects and calls for future research as well as suggesting promising lines of enquiry in the discipline.

International Journal of Critical Diversity Studies

Once in a while, a book is published which can be described as having its finger on the pulse of the ordinary citizens of the world. Here is a book which introduces the notion of the Coloniality of Data and proceeds to undertake a critical analysis of how "data is now the new gold and oil" which can be mined, processed and utilised to make "data-informed policies and decisions". These decisions are in favour of those who mine, process and own the data, Benyera argues. The capitalisation, politicisation and, not surprisingly, the abuse of data was argued as the new frontier for what he argued constitutes the recolonisation of Africa. Big Data is demystified as not constituting an innocent resource but as the latest instrument in the never-ending armoury of coloniality. The most important contribution of the book was the introduction of the Coloniality of Data as a form of epistemic crime and injustice as it perpetuates asymmetrical power relations with those who enacted colonialism continuing to benefit from its infrastructure. This way, Benyera draws a direct causal link between Euro-North American political modernity, colonialism, and the Coloniality of Data. This is an innovative way of drawing insights into new academic terrains such as how the massive amounts of data being generated is being related to those who produce, but not won the data. This book questions what seems to be the unquestionable trajectory of life during the Fourth Industrial Revolution and its trumpeting as the panacea to African problems. In his latest book, Everisto Benyera takes time to build, layer-by-layer, the dangers inherent in the 4IR for the Global South in general and Africa in particular. Unfortunately, this also constitutes one of the weakest aspects of the book. Generalising about a phenomenon as wide, deep, and as nuanced as the 4IR to a geography as wide, deep, and as complicated as the Global South is bound to produce a narrative that tends to gravitate towards over-generalisation. To address the problems of tending to overgeneralise, Benyera laced his book with a lot of details on the concept that he developed known as the Coloniality of Data. It is debatable whether to attribute the concept and the notion of the Coloniality of Data to Benyera. However, what is undoubted is that he made a significant contribution in bringing this

2010

2016

This paper essentially examines the impact of globalization, information and communication technology (ICT) on African historiography. The paper argues that the advent of globalization and the introduction of ICT has exposed the historian to a bonanza of sources which can be easily accessed. This development has no doubt reduced, to a large extent, the challenges associated with source materials for the reconstruction of various aspects of African history, which were hitherto very difficult to access. Examining the various sources available for the reconstruction of African history (that is their strengths and weaknesses), the paper stresses the need for historians to treat the avalanche of sources derived from ICT with suspicion until their authenticity and reliability is established. This would in the long run provide more reliable assumptions and conclusions in the reconstruction of African history.

2018

Data has been rightly acknowledged as the future oil of the global economy. As a result of the large amounts of data being produced globally by individuals, households, organizations and nations, the potential for mining insights from aggregated big data has emerged, besides other uses of data. The potential multifaceted use of data for private and public good is fueled by super-fast telecommunication networks which power communications and data capture, transfer, storage and processing. However, while developed economies are pressing ahead to harness the potential of data to transform their societies, Africa has lagged behind in the harnessing of data for public good. In many African countries, basic access to data is still a major challenge, and the policy landscape which enables data for public good is largely lacking. This paper gives an overview of the situation in Africa, where the infrastructure and data policy deficit is hampering the continent’s efforts towards digital deve...

Alunge, N and Alunge, R. (2018). Big data: A Potential Asset for Development and Economic Growth in Africa. Journal of African Interdisciplinary Studies. 2(3), 48-59., 2018

The advent of the Information Age and Fourth Industrial Revolution has led to the involvement of innovative technologies in virtually all aspects of our lives, including commerce, shopping, transportation, education, and healthcare and even in our very homes. The use of these technologies creates or leaves behind traces of digital information (data) which range from information about our surrounding geographical (climate, temperature, humidity), and social conditions to information about where we have been, what we do, what we consume as food, goods or services, what we watch on television or even the websites we visit. All these data, generated in excessively huge amounts, represent an extensively vast variety of accurate facts about our lifestyle and preferences. Contemporary trends by governments, big enterprises and other institutions include gathering, analysing and aggregating these data (data analytics) and using the results to make administrative, political and especially business decisions. Big data has become a highly valuable economic asset, so much that it has sometimes been considered "the new oil".

The Journal of African History

This review article seeks to build bridges between mainstream African history and the more historically oriented branch of the ‘new’ economic history of Africa. We survey four central topics of the new economic history of Africa — growth, trade, labor, and inequality — and argue that the increased use of quantitative methods and comparative perspectives have sharpened views on long-term trajectories of economic development within Africa and placed the region more firmly into debates of global economic development. The revival of African economic history opens new opportunities for Africanist historians to enrich the interdisciplinary approaches they have taken to study questions of demography, poverty, slavery, labor, inequality, migration, state formation, and colonialism. These fruits, however, can only be reaped if the institutional boundaries between the fields of history and economic history are softened and both sides engage in greater mutual engagement. Our paper aims to move...

Progress in Development Studies, 2022

The collection, processing, storage and circulation of data are fundamental element of contemporary societies. While the positivistic literature on 'data revolution' finds it essential for improving development delivery, critical data studies stress the threats of datafication. In this article, we demonstrate that datafication has been happening continuously through history, driven by political and economic pressures. We use historical examples to show how resource and personal data were extracted, accumulated and commodified by colonial empires, national governments and trade organizations, and argue that similar extractive processes are a present-day threat in the Global South. We argue that the decoupling of earlier and current datafication processes obscures the underlying, complex power dynamics of datafication. Our historical perspective shows how, once aggregated, data may become imperishable and can be appropriated for problematic purposes in the long run by both public and private entities. Using historical case studies, we challenge the current regulatory approaches that view data as a commodity and frame it instead as a mobile, non-perishable, yet ideally inalienable right of people.