Panel 144: Africa and African Perspectives in the Global Information Space

The proliferation and widespread use of ICTs is transforming how people live, work, learn and play, creating new synergies and possibilities, and engendering new rules of sociocultural, political, civic and academic engagement unimaginable even a decade ago. By shrinking the time/space and technology divides, ICTs also facilitate transborder flows of information and knowledge. However, except for the much described mobile revolution, Africa is still perceived as peripheral to these trends that characterise the global information society. Obviously, Africa does participate in it, but it is not always evident that the world is listening to the conversations or to what extent Africa itself is actively engaging the rest of the world in dialogue. By trying to map the global impact of content and perspectives from Africa, this panel seeks to situate Africa within the global information society, not by rehashing the dominant discourses of deficits and divides, but by unpacking these narratives to discover the modes and practices through which African information, knowledge and perspectives enter the global space and interface with global communities. Proposals not limited to the following topics are sought:

-- Transnational scholarly networks and partnerships: formal and informal between individuals and institutions;
-- African scholarly communication initiatives;
-- The South-North and/or Diaspora-Homeland information and knowledge flows;
-- Social media and Africa: looking at and beyond YouTube, Twitter and Facebook in search of African services, communities of practice, and technologies (blogs and other content sharing tools like Mokocharlie or Zoopys; tools like the geotagging Ushahidi);
-- Creating local content for a global audience.