'Data sovereignty' or 'Data colonialism'? Exploring the Chinese involvement in Africa's ICTs: a document review on Kenya

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have become a crucial sector of China-Africa relations. As scholars have noted, Africa's 4th Industrial Revolution (4IR) risks transforming into a new 'scramble' with foreign actors harnessing Africa's data. The present article ex...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of contemporary African studies 2022-04, Vol.40 (2), p.270-285
Main Author: Calzati, Stefano
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
China-Africa relations
Colonialism
Communications technology
data colonialism
data sovereignty
Discourses
ICTs
Information technology
Innovations
Kenya
Sovereignty
Technological change
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Summary:Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have become a crucial sector of China-Africa relations. As scholars have noted, Africa's 4th Industrial Revolution (4IR) risks transforming into a new 'scramble' with foreign actors harnessing Africa's data. The present article explores this issue at a discursive level, i.e. delving into policies, bilateral agreements, and laws. The focus is specifically on Kenya in that it is one of the most developed ICT markets in Africa and it is here that the Chinese tech giant Huawei began its investments in 1998. Via a document review, the article provides a preliminary discursive assessment of the extent to which Kenyan actors are effectively (dis)empowered with regard to their own 4IR. The analysis shows that both pan-African and bilateral agreements remain at a high level of abstraction: while this is the typical Chinese way of framing discourses on technological innovation, it also leaves room for political manoeuvring and potential forms of data colonialism.
ISSN:0258-9001
1469-9397
DOI:10.1080/02589001.2022.2027351