Clapperton Chakanetsa Mavhunga
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780262027243
- eISBN:
- 9780262326155
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262027243.001.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Science, Technology and Environment
This book views technology in Africa from an African perspective. Technology does not always originate in the laboratory in a Western-style building but also in the society in the forest, in the crop ...
More
This book views technology in Africa from an African perspective. Technology does not always originate in the laboratory in a Western-style building but also in the society in the forest, in the crop field, and in other places where knowledge is made and turned into practical outcomes. African creativities are found in African mobilities. The book shows the movement of people as not merely conveyances across space but transient workspaces. Taking indigenous hunting in Zimbabwe as one example, it explores African philosophies of mobilities as spiritually guided and of the forest as a sacred space. Viewing the hunt as guided mobility, the book considers interesting questions of what constitutes technology under regimes of spirituality. It describes how African hunters extended their knowledge traditions to domesticate the gun, how European colonizers, with no remedy of their own, turned to indigenous hunters for help in combating the deadly tsetse fly, and examines how wildlife conservation regimes have criminalized African hunting rather than enlisting hunters (and their knowledge) as allies in wildlife sustainability. The hunt, the book states, is one of many criminalized knowledges and practices to which African people turn in times of economic or political crisis. It argues that these practices need to be decriminalized and examined as technologies of everyday innovation with a view toward constructive engagement, innovating with Africans rather than for them.Less
This book views technology in Africa from an African perspective. Technology does not always originate in the laboratory in a Western-style building but also in the society in the forest, in the crop field, and in other places where knowledge is made and turned into practical outcomes. African creativities are found in African mobilities. The book shows the movement of people as not merely conveyances across space but transient workspaces. Taking indigenous hunting in Zimbabwe as one example, it explores African philosophies of mobilities as spiritually guided and of the forest as a sacred space. Viewing the hunt as guided mobility, the book considers interesting questions of what constitutes technology under regimes of spirituality. It describes how African hunters extended their knowledge traditions to domesticate the gun, how European colonizers, with no remedy of their own, turned to indigenous hunters for help in combating the deadly tsetse fly, and examines how wildlife conservation regimes have criminalized African hunting rather than enlisting hunters (and their knowledge) as allies in wildlife sustainability. The hunt, the book states, is one of many criminalized knowledges and practices to which African people turn in times of economic or political crisis. It argues that these practices need to be decriminalized and examined as technologies of everyday innovation with a view toward constructive engagement, innovating with Africans rather than for them.
