The photographic record of an academic conference which key question was "How is technology rooted in a longer history of African experiences?"
Drew Thompson of Bard College talks about photography in Mozambique (All images by Solen Feyissa).
The program notes for “Africanizing Technologies” makes the point that Africa has long been a space of technological innovation and adaptation despite popular Western media depictions to the contrary. As the organizers write, “… Africa is at the center of global technology stories such as the history of nuclear proliferation” and its people have adopted and remixed older technologies such as studio photography and cars, with a consequent “… rich and complicated social impacts.” The conference was driven by the questions: “How is technology rooted in a longer history of African experiences? How do the emerging technological cultures on the continent contribute to our broader understandings of health, education, and social change? How does Africanizing Technology reshape our scholarly understandings of development? Can we speak of a broader pattern of Africanizing Technology in the current global circulation of digital media and other technologies?”
Heidi Gengenbach, University of Massachusetts Boston
Crystal Biruk, Oberlin College
Audience.
Drew Thompson of Bard College
Laura Ann Twagira, Wesleyan University
Tara Dosumu Diener from the University of Michigan
Mahriana Rofheart, Georgia Gwinnett College
Donna Patterson, Wellesley College
Summer Wood, New York University
Susan P. Wyche (Michigan State University), Gloria Emeagwali (Connecticut State University), Solen Feyissa (University of Minnesota) and Sean Jacobs (The New School)
Paul Erickson of Wesleyan University
Joshua Grace, University of South Carolina
Jennifer Tucker, Wesleyan University and Ben Twagira, Boston University
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