{"title":"Africa’s New Digital Connectivity and Economic Change","authors":"Mohammad Amir Anwar, Mark Graham","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780198840800.003.0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198840800.003.0002","url":null,"abstract":"The rapid adoption and diffusion of digital technologies on the continent in the last decade has led many governments and observers to talk about Africa’s ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’. The underlying assertion here is that digital technologies will help African economies move away from the primary sector towards tertiary economic activities, and therefore put them on track for economic development. However, there are genuine concerns about the extent to which digital technologies will alter the existing modes and structures of production that currently benefit the African continent. This chapter argues that Africa continues to be locked into a value-extractive position in the global economy. Digital production, predominantly characterized by low value-added economic activities that do not necessarily translate into socio-economic improvements for the African working classes, represents a new arena for these dynamics to play out.","PeriodicalId":266366,"journal":{"name":"The Digital Continent","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-02-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133921401","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Hopes and Realities of the Digital","authors":"Mohammad Amir Anwar, Mark Graham","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780198840800.003.0001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198840800.003.0001","url":null,"abstract":"Big hopes about African development are pinned on the digital economy activities, ranging from employment generation to reduction of poverty and inequality. In the context of widespread joblessness on the continent, young African workers—who are often highly educated—are turning to the new job opportunities (e.g. artificial intelligence and machine learning, call centre work, a range of gig work) presented by an emerging information-based economy not necessarily out of choice but necessity. Therefore, the core question of the book is as follows. How are these new digital economy activities influencing African workers’ lives and livelihoods? This chapter outlines the book’s theoretical and conceptual scope, the geographical context of the research behind it, its key contributions, and core arguments.","PeriodicalId":266366,"journal":{"name":"The Digital Continent","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-02-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115947721","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Resilience, Reworking, and Resistance","authors":"Mohammad Amir Anwar, Mark Graham","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780198840800.003.0006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198840800.003.0006","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter examines how African workers exercise agency in the remote gig economy. In addition to the monetary and non-monetary rewards reaped by gig workers, they face significant risks. Gig work platforms and clients/employers exert control over labour power and labour process through the mechanisms of ratings, feedback, user profile registrations, and algorithmic surveillance, thus constraining workers’ autonomy and bargaining power. In fact, opportunities for worker action in the gig economy are apparently fewer than in so-called ‘Fordist’ workplaces. Remote gig workers are expected to have fewer opportunities to exert their agency. Further, in comparison to European workers, African workers have less state welfare support to fall back on, which can also limit their agency. Drawing from a rich labour geography tradition, this chapter reformulates the notions of ‘resistance’, ‘resilience’, and ‘reworking’ as everyday practices of agency, best understood as ‘hidden transcripts’ of the gig economy.","PeriodicalId":266366,"journal":{"name":"The Digital Continent","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-02-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131238478","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Futures of work","authors":"Mohammad Amir Anwar, Mark Graham","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780198840800.003.0007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198840800.003.0007","url":null,"abstract":"If the future of work in Africa is to contain decent jobs and fair outcomes for African workers, we need to ensure that we appropriately conceptualize the transnational networks in which digital jobs are embedded. Employers and workers, through the affordances of digital technologies, are seeking each other out on genuinely planetary labour markets, escaping some of the constraints that previously bound them exclusively to their local labour markets. A planetary labour market of digital work that can go anywhere does not necessarily mean that it exists nowhere. Economic production is embedded in socio-political and cultural contexts. Thus, to create a better future for workers in Africa, state and its institutions, trades unions, and civil society organizations, must rise to the challenge of not just thinking globally, but also acting globally if we want a planetary labour market to represent anything other than a global race to the bottom.","PeriodicalId":266366,"journal":{"name":"The Digital Continent","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-02-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114482756","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Digital Work, Human Labour, and Development","authors":"Mohammad Amir Anwar, Mark Graham","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780198840800.003.0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198840800.003.0004","url":null,"abstract":"Employment is considered by many to be a central piece of the development puzzle. The emergence of digital work activities on the African continent has been perceived by observers, policymakers, and development practitioners as a silver bullet for solving the continent’s many socio-economic problems, including joblessness and poverty. Yet, little is known about the impacts of these activities on African workers. This chapter draws from the literature on the quality of work to understand development implications of digital work in Africa. While this body of work has its theoretical origins in high-income countries, there are certain commonalities to be found in low- and middle-income regions. We therefore conceptualize the impacts of two digital economy activities (namely call and contact centre work and remote gig work) on African workers in terms of autonomy at work, bargaining power, freedom of association, economic inclusion, skills upgrading, and labour agency.","PeriodicalId":266366,"journal":{"name":"The Digital Continent","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-02-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116919883","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Economic Geographies of Digital Work in Africa","authors":"Fabian Braesemann","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780198840800.003.0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198840800.003.0003","url":null,"abstract":"Workers perform a diverse range of digital economy activities both in BPOs and on platforms. This chapter provides a snapshot of how and where these diverse work activities get done in Africa, showing that African workers remain very much a part of contemporary digital capitalism. They perform a wide range of digital work activities from diverse locations—from an office block in the centre of a lively metropolis, to a makeshift room in a town recovering from civil war, as well as a multitude of bedrooms, cafes, and libraries across the continent. In summary, this chapter offers a visual and descriptive outline of the various types of digital activities being performed in newer spaces that are connecting to the global information economy. In doing so, it asks what types of work get done in Africa, and what that means for value creation and capture.","PeriodicalId":266366,"journal":{"name":"The Digital Continent","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-02-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128958039","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Digital Taylorism","authors":"Mohammad Amir Anwar, Mark Graham","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780198840800.003.0005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198840800.003.0005","url":null,"abstract":"Undoubtedly, the emergence of the digital economy has generated new economic opportunities for workers on the continent. Thousands of African workers are now performing a vast variety of digital work activities. At the same time, various technological and social-economic barriers influence African workers’ experience of digital work. This chapter describes the lived experiences of those workers. Practically, the chapter narrates African workers’ everyday struggles to find paid work and to make a living in a highly commoditized form of global economic production. It explores four development dimensions of digital work, i.e. freedom, flexibility, precarity, and vulnerability. The chapter asserts that instead of these dimensions being compartmentalized, they are dynamic and exist in a continuum for any given job.","PeriodicalId":266366,"journal":{"name":"The Digital Continent","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-02-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122768554","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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