on 26th of June 2019 the book MEDIA PRACTICES AND CHANGING AFRICAN SOCIALITIES - NON-MEDIA-CENTRIC PERSPECTIVES, edited by Jo Helle-Valle and Ardis Storm-Mathisen was submitted to Berhahn Book. It will be available for sale in Feburary 2020.
In March 2019 Helle-Valle presented an invited paper at the Department of Social Anthropology at the world's northernmost university - University of Tromsø. Its title was "Ny virkelighet, nye medier, ny antropology?" ("New reality, new media - a new anthropology?").
The beautiful university in the beautiful city of Tromsø is always a pleasure to visit but this time it was special - with bright winter days and breath-taking Northern Lights in the night.
A web page for the villagers, about the village and by the villagers.
On October 19 2018 the web page www.letlhakeng.com was launched. It is the result of the project’s wish to give something back to the generous, kind inhabitants of the Botswana village where an important portion of the project’s fieldwork was conducted, and where the PI has carried out fieldwork regularly since 1990. Our original idea was to organise a seminar in the village kgotla for all villagers to come and hear about the findings from the project that were of interest to the village. However, based on our findings, and new reflections, we decided that it would be of greater value for villagers if we assisted in creating a web page for the village.
There are several reasons for why we landed on this strategy. First, we found that especially many villagers were not able to utilise programs and schemes that could improve their lives because they lacked relevant information. A web page could be an ideal platform for disseminating information about such resources. Secondly, although the village belongs to the peripheral part of Botswana it is placed in the intersection of several routes that both tourists and Batswana frequently use. Thus, an easily accessible information hub containing practical information for visitors and passerbys could boost local businesses. Thirdly, we found that there is not one, unifying information hub for villagers. As their access to the internet becomes consistently easier and cheaper, a village web page can well serve such a purpose. Especially as the various local institutions would increase their own outreach if they made use of the page. And lastly, our experience so far has shown that it has already become a source of pride for the village’s inhabitants. As the village chief expressed it, this web page places Letlhakeng on the global map!
Thus, the web site is non-profit, non-commercial – about Letlhakeng, for Letlhakeng and by people from Letlhakeng. Its goal is to contribute to a positive development of Letlhakeng village, by providing useful and transparent information to villagers and other interested parties.
www.letlhakeng.com is co-owned by the research project and Letlhakeng village.
The www.letlhakeng.com team!
The following individuals contributed to the creation of the page October 2018, and are still engaged in running it:
Main working editor: Kaone Phuthego
Editors: Nametso Laretsi; Thero Keikotlhae
Journalists and photographers: Keemenao Carven Keresiane; Katso Garebunantse; Kebafilwe Moselesele; Mary Gipadileng; Chinana Bontle Keikantseng and Boemo Keoepile.
From the Norwegian side: Niels Theissen (Editor in chief), Ardis Storm-Mathisen (mediafrica researcher) and Jo Helle-Valle (head of mediafrica project).
Homepage creation in progress …
An Advisory Board consisting of Lesego Phillip (Principal Library Officer); Itsoseng Gaoonwe (Village Kgosi); Felicity Nyoni (Youth Development Officer); Kenny Kenanao William (teacher of English at Mphuthe Junior Secondary School). A person from VDC will also be appointed.
On November 8th 2018 the PI held an invited presentation for staff in NORAD - the (Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation). The presentation focused on the project theme - which is very much aligned with the new ICT strategy of NORAD - as well as presenting the processes that led to the making the web page www.letlhakeng.com.
This topic is covered in Ardis Storm-Mathisen’s book chapter ‘'Gender representations and identity constructions among young teenagers in Botswana - exploring the influence of media' published in: D. Lemish and M. Gotz, Eds (2017).: Beyond the Stereotypes? Images of Boys and Girls, and their consequences. Nordicom, p. 173-181. Your can read the chapter here and the full book here.
Read MoreKatrien Pype co-authored with Alessandro Jedlowski a chapter that provides an overview of the main themes of the anthropology of media in Africa”. The chapter is included in A Companion to the Anthropology of Africa, 2019, co-edited by R.R. Grinker, S.B. Lubkemann, C.B. Steiner, and E. Gonçalves.
You can read a summary of the chapter here:
Karin Barber's emphasis on an anthropological approach to the study of cultural texts, publics and audiences, and modes of address had a particular influence on emerging research on African media. This chapter focuses on a variety of different topics: from the role of media in shaping political communities to their interaction with the emergence of new modes of conceiving intimacy, morality, and religion, from the role of media in the mobility of people across Africa and beyond, to the impact of technological innovation on the mobility of media contents and on the emergence of new genres and styles. One of the more common topics in the study of African media is political communication. The emergence of new media technologies has also transformed the way space and distance are understood and managed by people around the African continent and in the diaspora.
Ardis Storm-Mathisen’s article ‘Visual Methods in Ethnographic Fieldwork – On Learning from Participants Through their Video-accounts’ has been published in Forum for development studies, 2018, 45(2), 261-286.
Read MoreKatrien Pype and Jo Helle-Valle co-organised the work shop “Energizing Erotic Selves. Ethnographies of Seduction and Media in Sub-Saharan Africa.”, which took place on December 1st 2018.
The program:
Chairs: Jo Helle-Valle, Oslo and Akershus University and Katrien Pype, KU Leuven
Beth Buggenhagen (Indiana University) - Being Seen: The Circulation of Portraiture in Awa and Bingo Magazines
Tanja Bosch (University of Cape Town) - 'Liquid Love': South African Users' Experiences of Tinder
Jo Helle-Valle (Oslo and Akershus University) - Sexual Encounters: Romance, Gendered Identity, Instrumentality and New Media in Botswana
Katrien Pype (KU Leuven) - Bolingo Ya Face - Digital Marriages and Affective Labor in Kinshasa
HH histories ..
In 2018 the PI, together with prof. Axel Borchgrevink, has published the article ".Household histories and methodological triangulation." in Forum for Development Studies. It is based on the two authors' various field work experiences, including the PI's work on the mediafrica project. Here you can access the full text of the article.
The full reference is: Helle-Valle, Jo & Axel Borchgrevink. 2018. “Household histories and methodological triangulation”. Forum for Development Studies, 45 (2): 191-215.
In Jauary 2018 an anthology seminar was organised in Marrakech, Morocco. In picturesque surroundings in the old city.
Wendy Willems, Katrien Pype, Nanna Schneidermann, Thomas Hylland Eriksen, Ardis Storm-Mathisen and Jo Helle-Valle had three intense days where chapter manuscripts were discussed and reworked. These manuscript will turn into an anthology for the mediafrica project, with the working title Media practices and changing African socialities. It is scheduled to be come out on Berghahn Publishers early 2020.
More information will come
Nanna Schneidermann's article Distance/Relation- Doing Fieldwork with Social Media has recently been published in the journal Forum For Development Studies as part of a special issue on Qualitative Methodologies in Development Studies, edited by Hilde Arntsen and Anne Waldrop. The article is available for free download for a period of time.
As social media become part of everyday lives across the world, ethnographers are confronted with questions about how to approach the field ‘online’ and what kinds of data social media might generate in research projects that do not have media as their field of inquiry. Based on 16 months of fieldwork among young music artists in Uganda, this article demonstrates how doing fieldwork with social media can shape the research process, both in and out of the field. Drawing from philosopher Martin Buber’s ideas about relation and distance, I argue that though the twofold movement between distance and relation is conditional for human sociality, the shifting tension between these two modes are urgently present in ethnographic fieldwork, and set in motion in new ways, when the field moves online.
Katrien Pype's chapter on "Nzete Ekauka versus the Catholic Church. Religious Competition, Media Ban and The Virgin Mary in Contemporary Kinshasa." has been published in Religion, Media and Marginality in Modern Africa, eds. F. Becker, J. Cabrita and M. Rodet, Cambridge African Studies Series, Ohio University Press, 2018, pp. 202-228.
Since 1986, Brother Raphael Minga Kwete has been receiving divine messages from the Virgin Mary, Jesus, the saints, as well as Catholic leaders such as Padre Pio and Francis of Assisi in his compound commonly known as "Nzete Ekauka" ("the dessicated tree"). During the 1990s, this compound was the arena of fervent prayer gatherings where Catholic clergy, intellectuals, politicians, and even figures of the local music scene could be seen praying. Nowadays, the compound is nearly empty. The exodus started in the early 2000s, and today only a few dozen people (mainly women) continue to attend daily prayers, donate money, and spread the Virgin’s messages more widely. An informal media ban was issued by the Catholic Church in the early 2000s. The Nzete case-study will situate media presence, production, and aesthetics within a larger field of competition between orthodox Catholicism and more popular forms of engagement with Catholic spirits. In addition, the idea of the Virgin Mary as a spirit who addresses the Congolese through the prophet, draws our attention to the transformations urban religiosity has undergone in the late postcolonial era, and to the enduring role of Catholic clergy in urban Africa.
a pamphlet produced by the prophet Frère Raphael Minga-Kwete (picture taken in 2012)
On May 9 2018, Katrien Pype delivered a key note at the Participatory Videofilm Festival #1 (organized by researchers at the University of Ghent, Belgium).
She introduced three different ways of alternative forms of "participation", beyond the act of filming and performing. First, her ethnographic research on the production of evangelizing television serials has drawn her attention to the fact that, if people act and watch filmed drama, this can have spiritual consequences. Participation in electronic modernity here also includes participation of one's soul, of spirits, and of invisible powers. Second, her research on political subjectivities in the Congolese blogosphere has pushed her to reconsider acts such as clicking and remediating digital content. Digital citationality, so she argues, connects to the emergence of the political subject in similar fashion as citing other people's voices construes the social person in local pedogagical understandings. Finally, participation by proxy, as informed by her research on elder people's usage of mobile phones (they often ask others to send text messages or make phone calls on their behalf) can often be the only way in which people can participate in electronic modernity while respecting local parameters of seniority and bigmanity.
At the moment I am doing fieldwork in Overcome Heights an informal settlement in Cape Town of around 4.500 households. This builds on fieldwork from 2016/2017 where I examined health practices in relation to new media with a focus on maternal and infant health. A central finding was that women experience a close relation between health and security in poor and marginalized areas, but also that they experience these relations differently – and here ethnic backgrounds matter. I have teamed up with Steffen Jensen from DIGNITY institute in Denmark, and Capetonian anthropologist Shari Thanjan, to delve further into these matters. Together with community leaders in one of the few multiethnic informal settlements in Cape Town we are following 15 local families of diverse backgrounds over a period of 8 weeks. Three weeks into the project, some interesting links emerge between health, security and new media: Control of public space and crime prevention are central concerns for residents. The messaging platform WhatsApp has revolutionized how community policing and neighborhood watches organize themselves, and is further a resource to call on help in situations where residents do not expect the police to drive out.
New media plays a role in the social control of the area as well. While a number of suburban areas near Overcome Heights have Facebook “community groups”, an old South African new media monster continues to rear its head. The public Russia-based chat website Ou Toilet started as a teen chat site in the Western Cape around 2008 and it became highly publicized, at times banned, and generally despised before it apparently vanished from view of mainstream society. But in the poor and marginalized areas of Cape Town’s southside, the site continues to be a place where the most vile – and sometimes true – accusations are made about sex, drugs, gangs and politics.
For some new media can it themselves be compromising health-security concerns: having a phone makes one a target for robbery and theft. Being on social media, especially for young girls, makes one vulnerable and accessible to potentially predatory men and their seductive tactics in chats and Facebook.
While new media is often celebrated as catalysts and drivers of development, only hampered by lack of access and infrastructure, it is worth taking seriously how poor and marginalized urban residents experience new media as more complex phenomena, and looking at strategies of avoidance or experiences of harm.
Nanna Schneidermann has a new piece out on the medical anthropology platform Somathosphere.net.
The piece asks: What does making a new life look like from the perspective of a mobile phone? And, inspired by James Scott's seminal work, delves into the promises of M-health as a project of governance in South Africa.
Read more here.
Cape Town is running out of water. The region of the Western Cape is experiencing the worst drought since 1933. Since I left Cape Town in June last year human and natural disaster has been looming on the all too bright and sunny horizon. They call it Day Zero. The day the dam levels in the city’s water reserves will be too low to provide safe water for the more than 5 million residents in the city.
Currently the city is at a Level 6 B water restriction scheme. This means that each resident can use 50 liters of water per day. A five minute shower uses just around 40 liters. Flushing the toilet somewhere between 6 and 12 liters. “If it’s yellow, let it mellow. If it’s brown flush it down,” are the new guidelines. In some areas of Cape Town the water has been intermittently shut off, for hours or days, without prior notification to residents, apart from the publication of the Level 6 B water restrictions. Commercial and agricultural properties must reduce water use with 45 percent and 60 percent respectively, compared with pre-drought usage.
The calls to defeat Day Zero is printed on posters, broadcasted on the radio and in television ads. Airb’n’b offers free cancellation to tourists who decide to stay at home rather than burden Cape Town with more water users. I like to listen to the Fine Music Radio, and here the messages to use less water seemed tailor made for a middle-class classical music loving audience: “A green lawn was a symbol of pride, now a sign of squander.” The ward councilor in my area posts on Facebook and twitter about sustainable solutions like collecting “grey” water (rain water, water from showers etc.) for recycling under the hashtag #ourresilience. On day Zero, the city government claims, 200 water collection points will be set up across the city, where residents can collect 25 liters per person. Observers argue that this scenario is completely unrealistic and will lead to war-like conditions around the taps. In the informal settlement where I do fieldwork, it doesn’t make much of a difference, though, says the community activist Mary. Most residents are picking up their water at communal taps anyway.
This kind of natural disaster by climate change is one that has been creeping in over many years. Rainfall has decreased in the region. Maybe in another time and place the prospect of a city of five million people running dry would warrant some sort of state of emergency, and international intervention. But in Cape Town life just seems to be going on as usual. Meanwhile, some of the decision makers that could have intervened with the #watercrisis have their own crises to worry about. In the City of Cape town the ruling party Democratic Alliance is trying to dethrone their own mayor Patricia De Lille with criminal charges of forgery and corruption. Word on the street is that the DA (typically attracting White and Coloured voters) want to replace her with a Black African front figure to broaden their base in a city receiving hundreds of mainly black south African migrant settlers every day. On a national level the country is facing a bizarre gridlock. The president Jacob Zuma (and other top ranking officials) are accused of state capture. Their party, ANC, Nelson Mandela’s party, a few weeks ago overthrew Zuma as president of the party, and elected his vice president Cyril Ramaphosa to lead the party. The obvious result would be for the president of the country to step down, as he officially lost his political legitimacy. This, however, did not happen. Last week the president of the country’s ruling party was set to deliver “the state of the union” but it was cancelled. Who should deliver the speech? The president of the party or the president of the country who was elected as ANC’s leader? Negotiations have been going on within ANC to organize Zuma’s exit, but they seem gridlocked, At the charity shop yesterday me and the ladies complained that there are no credible parties left to vote for in this country. We hold our breath, waiting for the next disaster. Is South African politics headed towards a Day Zero as well?
Yesterday was eerie like that, everything seemed to hold its breath. Early in the evening the thunder started rumbling over the mountains, with white flashes dancing across the skies. Dennis and I had clothes hanging on the line outside. For them not to get wet, we rushed out to collect them in woven baskets. Then the downpour came. Heavy drops soon became a blanket of warm water. We made tea. Listened to the sound of the downpour on the roof of the old house. A sudden realization made us jump up and grab all buckets, containers and bowls: The water from the roof would be gathering in the drainpipes, flowing into the ground in the yard. The drain under the kitchen window had its last part amputated to make space for a large storage box underneath it. Laboring with great urgency our buckets and basins found new places under pipes and leaks. Drenched and happy we sat back at the kitchen table with our tea, and Dennis asked me to turn on the 6 o’clock news. “I think they recalled Zuma,” he said. ANC recalled Zuma’ appointment as president of South Africa. The grounds for the recall remain murky, and many other questions are left unanswered within and without the party. This morning Dennis says that Facebook says that the Guptas, the rich family involved in Zuma’s state capture case, were raided this morning and that several arrests have been made.
Among Capetonians the rain and the recall were linked specks of hope. On Facebook a photo of a man praying in the rain, surrounded by cars, circulated. Apparently, he had stopped his car in the middle of the hectic Cape Town evening traffic to pray and thank God for the rain.
Any use of new media presupposes an infrastructure that can deliver the digital signals and people with means to access and use it. While the West has seen the computer and fixed internet lines as the dominating platform and infrastructure for the longest period of internet development, the African continent have moved right to mobile platforms and mobile signals.
Botswana
Botswana is no exception. More than 95% of all internet traffic in the country is on mobile platforms although around9% of the population are internet subscribers which is rather high in comparison to other African countries. The coverage of SIM-cards or mobile subscriptions in Botswana is moreover among the six highest in the world: 167 pr 100 inhabitants - i.e. an average of more than one and a half SIM-card pr inhabitant. A RIA survey from 2012 indicate that 80 % of batswana own a phone , but that only 30 % had mobiles capable of browsing the internet. However, although sales statistics point to smartphones being sold in ever increasing numbers (ref?), feature phones or 'dumb phones' that makes accessing internet difficult or impossible still seem to be the more common than the former.
Maitlamo, the countrys ICT policy
Although Botswana has scored well on several indicators related to development of the internet, it has in comparison to other African countries been among the most expensive and complicated when it comes to costs (RIA). Yet, developments are fast and the figures outdate quickly. Also, such statistics tells us relatively little about how everyday internet reality for Batswana is.. Finding out more about this and what the internet is used for is a task in the Mediafrica project.
It was among the 10 poorest countries in the world when it gained its independence in 1966. The country has since experience a remarkable growth (due to the discovery of diamonds), and reached in the 90’s status as a middle income country. To lay ground for an after-diamond economy and bridging the global divital divide, large sums has since the early 200's(?) been invested to build up ICT infrastructure. The vision is that digital connection to world markets, to education and for social life in general shall ensure sound development for Botswana (vision 2016).
Digital reality?
Below are some snapshots of the various online connection possibilities we have become familiar with during our first month of fieldwork.
Ways to get online?
Airtime - Wherever you go in Gaborone you see people with mobile phones; carrying them in their hands texting, talking, tapping. There are numerous small booths selling sweets- and airtime (cost for time spent talking/texting on a mobile phone) for the three different operators (Mascom, Orange and Be). You can buy small scratch cards or sms transfers of10, 20 or 100 Pula Airtime for the three operators; Mascom, Orange and Bee. “What is this airtime used for?” we asked. “Topping up the mobile” was the answer. Those who sell report there are many buyers every day. Enough to keep them going. We associate airtime to voice calls and sms’es mainly (?), but is it also a way Batswana connect with the internet? Yes, to some Batswana that’s the way, as the story of Kody and Keitumetse illustrates below.
Gaborone is the area with best internet infrastructure in Botswana. Our own first access to internet here – as we did not yet have Bastwana simcards – was through the WI-Fi’s available at the guest house where we stayed and the various cafes, restaurants and internetcafes we visited. In all these places WiFi was a service connected to other expenses – albeit not publicly ‘free’. It seems difficult to find places with ‘free wifi’ in Gaborone (except for at the university, but that is only for students and staff with usernames). The available ‘extra service’ wifi’s were also often rather weak/slow and unstable as many people use them simultaneously (although BOCRA has set a standard for these).
Could mobile internet subscription provide better internet access than the wi-fi’s? Finding out what was the various mobile internet subscription possibilities proved difficult. We therefore decided to visit the operator who advertised 4G possibility. At first sight the price did not appear too terrifying to a Norwegian – P 149 for one month with up to 800 MB – so we went for it. With some help we managed to go online, and to use our phone as a hot-spot for our laptops. However, given our habitual high use-pattern the 800 MB’s went quickly. And, when inspecting the connection we found the 4G surfing was not a reality, our phones (being brand new 4G enabled) only connected to the 2G network (Whereas 2G - the second generation of mobile technology – worked best for making calls and sending text messages and 3G made it possible to access the internet more effectively through the mobile phone, 4G services are supposed to make surfing the web from mobiles as speedy as on home broadband allowing for video streaming, mapping and social networking sites).
Not finding the mobile internet solutions all that satisfactory we inquired about the fixed line internet possibility and decided to try out the most affordable package (bronze). The costs for fixed internet connection are said to have been reduced by 75 percent since 2013 and we were offered a montly rate of 450 Pula (?). Although this connection was a bit slow and had interruptions it did, given som patience, accommodate many of our ordinary surfing needs.
The young are on Facebook, but wherelse? – and what about the older generation?
There are few countries in the world where the difference between rich and poor are as large as in Botswana. The Gini-coefficient, which is the most common measure of differences in wealth within a population, is a staggering 0.5??, which indicates that a great proportion of the population is poor – in spite of the fact that Botswana is one of the wealthiest countries in Africa. This means many Batswana cannot access internet the way we do. Yet, most young adult Batswana seem to have some access to internet from their mobile. How do they do it- and for what?
Kody, a 24 year old woman coming from the Francistown area but living just outside Gaborone, has a daughter of two and a boyfriend in a steady, relatively well paid job but stays alone with her daughter. We met her as she at about six was leaving her job as a security guard in Gaborone, eager to get home to her daughter who was looked after by a young, distant relative. Thepi has a five year old cellphone. She got it from her father when she finished school and according to her it made a huge difference in her life allowing her to keep better track of sociality with her friends, entertain herself when feeling lonely and now keeping in touch with family when staying so far away. Thepi does not have an email address and her worn,scratchy and shady mobile cannot connect to internet through wifi or hot-spot. Yet, she IS on Facebook and a frequent user of What’s app. So how does Thepi connect? Thepi shows us how.
First she needs to have some airtime, 10 P of airtime is enough. Then she dials a certain number that directs her to Mascom’s MyTime Internet time, a page from where she can buy internet bundles. She buys every month a bundle for 50 Pula. This allows her to surf as much as she wants (no limit to MB download) for 5 hours within 30 days. When she has MyTime left she gains access to internet typing in addresses in the mobile browser.
Keitumetse, a 21 year old woman, who came down from her rural village less than a year ago along with several classmates to find work. She lives with her aunt and has fewer living expenses. She used her first salary to buy a fancy tablet phone, a precious thing she carries next to skin to protect it from theft, and posts frequently on Facebook, mainly to communicate with friends. The phone has a big shiny screen, can access internet and connect to wifi, but whereas internet is expensive and wifi not so often a possibility, she often uses 0.facebook.com/zero.facebook.com: “ a text-only” version of the standad Facebook” (0.facebook.com) that allows her to update her status, view her newsfeed, like and comment pages, send and reply to messages and write on her friends walls. Link to internet.org and the ria report on facebook zero]. But as pictures and going to other websites is charged, she also uses the ordinary m. facebook.com when having internet time left in her bundle. Although she has experienced buying for aitime and bundles she did not receive from the operator, she does not know how or trust there are agencies where she can file such complaints (BOCRA).
A raised concern, connected to the use of services such as facebook zero is that these young people, due to their efforts to keep costs down, are tied into particular Facebook pages and operator relationships, and cannot be considered to have access to the kind of free internet that can foster democratic development (http://www.researchictafrica.net/publications/Other_publications/RIA_Facebookzerorating_policypaper.pdf ). Also, the generation of older adults, especially those living in rural areas with lower incomes, seem to a very little extent to have any access to internet. As one young man put it: “no parent or person over 50 is on Facebook or the like, except if they are rich”. In this sense the digital divide is wide at present in the country.
Growing digital divide?
There seem to be a lot of practical hindrances to extensive use of internet In Botswana despite the many alternatives being developed.
First, although more reliable and speedy internet connections like fixed broadband and 4G are available costs are still too high for most Batswana to use these. Free access alternatives like free wifi is scarce. Also, many Batswana seem to have phones that does not cater for use on wifi. Such phones as expensive. The combination of high prices and many poor inhabitants - means that a lot of people can't afford using the internet, even though they could have accessed it if it wasn't for their economic concerns.
Secondly, even for those who can afford fixed broadband and 4G connectivity, these services do not yet seem to deliver what they promise – not even in Gaborone. Despite all the alternatives we have been able to utilize we have not experienced one day without some delay or interruption in connectivity – and out connection is usually 2G, sometimes 3G. A visit to the bank, a place you would expect had good connection, or when using credit card for swipe payment, you find things are slow because the connection is down. And although store provide all the big gaming consoles and games (Playstation, xbox, wii and games such as FIFA, GTA, COD CS etc) to those who have money and interests in that direction, attendants inform us these are mostly used offline “our internet connection does not cater for online games”. The many electric outages cut the transmission of signals. The situation is even worse in the rural areas where there are still places with very bad or no coverage (link Bocra 2014).
So, although more and more Batswana may be online regularly, they are not online for very long hours and their use is tuned to the conditions of their internet opportunities. Desipite promises of 4G speed they are stuck in the 3rd world tempo caused by electricity breakdowns, unrealiable connections and high costs. These conditions still seem to put the majority of Batswana among the digital disadvantaged in a global context, and widens the digital divide between Batswana.
(ta ut?)The latest IPhone model is nothing more than a fancy status symbol if information is not transmitted.Although coverage has improved, speed is often very slow. The promise of 4G is that you can surf the internet with your mobile at speeds similar to that of fixed broadband.
Mediafrica was present at the AIG 2017 Sympiosium ‘The current state and the future trend of ICT in Botswana, arranged Oct 27th by Computer society of Botswana at University of Botswana Library Auditorium, Gaborone, South-East, Botswana.
At the 116th annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association in Washington DC the resident postdoc of the MediAfrica project contributed a poster entitled Coming of Age in Cape Town – searching for innocence in difficult transitions. The poster shows how visual narratives of youthhood in my own ethnographic material in crucial ways coincide with the stories told in two recent movies about coming of age in cape town, made by local film companies, and that they challenge how we conceptualize “youth” as a social category of transition.
Youth is conventionally a transition from pure childhood to mature adulthood. But in the disillusioned New South Africa it is the other way around: coming of age is a search for innocence. During 9 months of fieldwork among poor black families in Cape Town I collected video diaries from 19 young parents. Here the diaries of Matt and Jess are juxtaposed with images from the local feature films Noem My Skollie and Tess. The pixelated intimacy of Matt and Jessica's diaries contrast with the professional and clean footage from the movies. But these stories of coming of age told by Capetonians in 2017 have a common telos. They depict childhood as ruined by abuse and violence and transitions to adulthood as a search for purity and new beginnings. Aspirations for respectable adulthood are shaped by the experience of transitions that do not offer the healing and transformation promised.
Thanks goes out to, Matt, Jess, Meg Rickards and David Max Brown for sharing stories, photos and videos.
The MediAfrica team was left, right and center at this year's African Studies Association's 60th annual meeting in Chicago.
Katrien Pype chaired and presented in a double panel on Techno-Economic Challenges to Humanism, in dialogue with Achille Mbembe (and last year's Abiola lecture) as well as a series of ground-breaking scholars in African studies. Several of the papers spoke to the role of new media and digital technologies in shaping circulation of goods, ideas, values and people across the continent.
Nanna Schneidermann and Katrien Pype discussing project plans over lunch
Jo Helle-Valle, Ardis Storm-Mashisen and Nanna Schneidermann presented papers in the panel Gender, Concerns and New Media Practices, each in their way beginning to unpack ideas and material generated during fieldwork with the MediAfrica project.
New media on new media. Jo Helle-Valle presents research from Botswana
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