CRG Digital Africa

The CRG ‘Digital Africa’ provides a multidisciplinary network for fostering dialogue between researchers focusing on digital trends on the African continent.

About this CRG

African state bureaucracies are digitizing public records, central banks are exploring and implementing Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), and digital solutions to ID management often include biometric technologies. In addition, social media platforms such as WhatsApp, X and Facebook are important communication technologies for various forms of digital activism. Meanwhile, investments in digital technologies are growing exponentially both by leading multinational ICT-companies such as Orange, Vodafone, Google and Meta, as well as by a young generation of IT-savvy entrepreneurs building home-made digital solutions that contribute to the digital infrastructures on the continent. Such forms of digital world-making raise a number of urgent queries including questions related to digital rights and data privacy, digital divisions, surveillance and cyber security.

The CRG understands these transformations in a broad context. It welcomes historical, spatial, social, political, economic, and cultural contributions to the interdisciplinary discussion of digital developments in the following fields:

· Public administration and E-governance

· Democracy and elections

· Migration

· Humanitarian interventions

· Health and wellbeing

· Digital rights and activism

· Digital infrastructure

· Privacy/surveillance

· Commerce, trade and innovation

· Employment and AI

· Digital currencies and fintech

· Education, science and knowledge practices

· Agriculture and land

· Military and defence

· Data justice and methodological concerns among other emerging themes.

Coordinators:

Mohammad Amir Anwar (University of Edinburg)
Andrew Crawford (GIGA, Hamburg)
Jess Jahajeeah (University of Cape Town)
Toke Møldrup Wolff (University of Copenhagen)
Alena Thiel (University of Copenhagen)

To contact the team of convenors of the CRG, please email Alena Thiel, thie@itu.dk

CRG members will be able to participate in a range of research activities. The CRG convenes virtual and in-person seminars and workshops, panel sessions at the European Conference on African Studies (ECAS) and builds a collaborative “living” syllabus on Africa’s digital transformation.

The CRG Digital Africa is open to all interested researchers, practitioners and activists interested in Africa’s digital transition. Membership is free.

To join the CRG, please send an e-mail to Alena Thiel - thiel@itu.dk - stating your name, title, institutional affiliation, and domains of expertise.

Members will be visible on this website. Upon joining the CRG, members will be subscribed to our periodic mailing list. To unsubscribe, please send us an email.