Sustainable energy for whom? Governing pro-poor, low-carbon pathways to development: lessons from solar PV in Kenya

Using a combination of insights from innovation studies, sociotechnical transitions theory and the STEPS pathways approach, this paper analyses the evolution of the Kenyan photovoltaics (PV) market. Considered by many to be an exemplar of private sector led development, the Kenyan PV market has witnessed the adoption of more than 300,000 solar home systems and over 100,000 solar portable lights. The notion of an entrepreneurially driven unsubsidised solar market has proved to be a powerful narrative amongst development actors who, paradoxically, have provided millions of dollars of funding to encourage the market’s development. We argue that this donor support has been critical to the success of the market, but not simply by helping to create an enabling environment in which entrepreneurs can flourish. Donor assistance has been critical in supporting a range of actors to build the elements of a PV innovation system by providing active protection for experimentation, network-building, and the construction of shared visions amongst actors throughout supply chains and amongst users.This analysis gives important clues for designing climate and development policies, with implications for the governance of energy access pathways that are inclusive of poor and marginalised groups in low income countries

Workplace selves, interactive service work and outsourcing: labour in Kenya’s call centres

The consequences for workers of the expansion of interactive service work in Nairobi, Kenya, are explored in this thesis. I investigate workplace power relations as forms of control that are implicated in managerial strategies by examining workers' experiences in the call centre sector. The Foucauldian-inspired conceptual framework for this study privileges workplace selves, enabling a focus on how call centre agent conduct is problematized by management. The empirical part of the study uses a multimethod approach that includes interviews, workplace observations and a questionnaire. The empirical analysis demonstrates that while management tends to approach in-house or captive agents as low-status subordinate selves, business process outsourcing (BPO) agents are best regarded as flexible selves, owing to their selectively autonomous working roles and the relative insecurity of their work. As a ‘development’ project, the BPO sector is shown to have a mixed record with respect to agent livelihoods. It has given rise to new opportunities for workers but without providing stable employment. Examining the rationalities underpinning workplace control, my analysis indicates that captive agents can be understood as being subject to a rationality of directed conduct, while their BPO counterparts are more likely to be managed according to a rationality of strategic egalitarianism. Consequently, BPO agents are shown to be implicated in a relatively more complex configuration of workplace power relations than captive agents, with the result that they tend to speak more favourably about work that they also depict as onerous. The empirical analysis provides a basis for advancing theoretical understanding achieved by introducing novel concepts, the most important of which concern modes of workplace 'subjectification': comprehensive observation, selfproblematization and recognizing individualism. These help to position the analysis of managerial strategies in a way that neither regards agents as fully empowered nor assumes worker exploitation as the main outcome. The study demonstrates how management endeavours to oversee the intensive monitoring of conduct while also securing agents' commitment to their roles by providing fulfilling workplace experiences

A clampdown on a public sphere : the impacts of Al-Shabaab terror attacks on the Kenyan media freedom

In October 2011, the Kenya Defence Forces entered Southern Somalia for organized military operations with a Swahili codenamed “Operation Linda Nchi”, with the aim of capturing the port city Kismayu and weakening the Al-Shabaab militia group. This was as a result of kidnappings of foreign tourists in the Coastal Kenya and aid workers. The military operation however, prompted a domino effect of retaliatory attacks in Kenya by these insurgents. These terror attacks have resulted into severe impacts in Kenya that have also had an effect on the Kenyan media, which is characterized as one among the most vibrant and respected medias in Africa. This thesis aims at exploring the impacts of these terror attacks on the Kenyan media freedom. It focuses on the three major terror attacks; Westgate Mall, Mpeketoni and Garissa University attack, which took place in Kenya. It will then look further into the attack that took place in the Kenya Defence Forces’ camp in El-Adde Somalia. In order to address this study, a qualitative case study research method was incorporated to gather data regarding these attacks and how they have had an impact on the media freedom in Kenya. The study reveals that the Kenyan media is in fact facing a clamp-down in that the impacts of the Al-Shabaab attacks have had an implication on the media freedom albeit, indirectly. This has been through the string of anti-terrorism measures stipulated in the Security Law Amendment Act, which was passed into law by the parliament in 2014. President Kenyatta backed-up these laws as a measure to improve the country’s security scope in detecting, deterring and disrupting threats to the national security. The new laws have ignited major debates on the spirit of the Kenyan constitution regarding freedom of expression due to the significant influence it has on what the media intends to disseminate and how it disseminates it to the public. The study shows that the Kenyan media is a principal institution of the public sphere because it has provided an arena for two-way communication between the citizenry and polity resulting into the building of public opinion. The thesis further adds that the media in Kenya is an interface between the people and the state as an instrument in the flow of public information to the people. Thus, the study argues that the independence of the media and its free access is paramount as a beneficial factor in representing individuals and gauging democracy within the polity. Therefore, the thesis contends that the government is required to devise new strategies and measures to wage war on terror without antagonizing the media operations as it is a key sphere in Kenya.M-I

Developing a Framework for Stigmergic Human Collaboration with Technology Tools: Cases in Emergency Response

Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs), particularly social media and geographic information systems (GIS), have become a transformational force in emergency response. Social media enables ad hoc collaboration, providing timely, useful information dissemination and sharing, and helping to overcome limitations of time and place. Geographic information systems increase the level of situation awareness, serving geospatial data using interactive maps, animations, and computer generated imagery derived from sophisticated global remote sensing systems. Digital workspaces bring these technologies together and contribute to meeting ad hoc and formal emergency response challenges through their affordances of situation awareness and mass collaboration. Distributed ICTs that enable ad hoc emergency response via digital workspaces have arguably made traditional top-down system deployments less relevant in certain situations, including emergency response (Merrill, 2009; Heylighen, 2007a, b). Heylighen (2014, 2007a, b) theorizes that human cognitive stigmergy explains some self-organizing characteristics of ad hoc systems. Elliott (2007) identifies cognitive stigmergy as a factor in mass collaborations supported by digital workspaces. Stigmergy, a term from biology, refers to the phenomenon of self-organizing systems with agents that coordinate via perceived changes in the environment rather than direct communication. In the present research, ad hoc emergency response is examined through the lens of human cognitive stigmergy. The basic assertion is that ICTs and stigmergy together make possible highly effective ad hoc collaborations in circumstances where more typical collaborative methods break down. The research is organized into three essays: an in-depth analysis of the development and deployment of the Ushahidi emergency response software platform, a comparison of the emergency response ICTs used for emergency response during Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy, and a process model developed from the case studies and relevant academic literature is described

Fixing development: breakdown, repair and disposal in Kenya's off-grid solar market

The development project is a repair project. Schemes and initiatives to improve the human condition are borne from the belief that there is something broken in the status quo that we must fix. Small solar-powered products are one such fix. Portable lanterns and multilight home systems are being distributed across sub-Saharan Africa, particularly in rural areas, as part of efforts to reach universal energy access - a long-standing challenge of development. Yet these products themselves, like all things, break down. This thesis follows off-grid solar products in Kenya from moments of breakdown through sites of use, repair and disposal. The first half of the thesis looks at the historical development of the technology and the market that has grown up with and around it. Assemblage thinking shows that breakdown is more than a material process but is shaped by wider influences such as business and product design as well. The second half of the thesis describes what happens to the broken down solar product as it moves and is moved through Kenya. Despite differences in appearance and process in three different settings – the home, the repair clinic and the company - the thesis finds consistencies in people’s responses to breakdown. These consistencies appear as a form of bricolage as people draw on previous experience and make use of resources at-hand to reach an acceptable, if at times limited, functionality for their products. Disposal of that which is not repaired is found to always be prefaced by an indefinite period of waiting. The thesis is based on 16 months of fieldwork across the country which included observation of independent and company repair practices and rural and urban waste management processes. 44 interviews were conducted with independent repairmen, company representatives and other relevant individuals. Further information is drawn from a telephone survey of 262 users of solar products. If the macro project of international development is to fix the broken world, then this thesis argues it may benefit from closer examination of micro repair practices. By embracing the inevitability of future breakdown and adopting the principles of bricolage development might get closer to the improved world it aims for

Responsible AI in Africa

This open access book contributes to the discourse of Responsible Artificial Intelligence (AI) from an African perspective. It is a unique collection that brings together prominent AI scholars to discuss AI ethics from theoretical and practical African perspectives and makes a case for African values, interests, expectations and principles to underpin the design, development and deployment (DDD) of AI in Africa. The book is a first in that it pays attention to the socio-cultural contexts of Responsible AI that is sensitive to African cultures and societies. It makes an important contribution to the global AI ethics discourse that often neglects AI narratives from Africa despite growing evidence of DDD in many domains. Nine original contributions provide useful insights to advance the understanding and implementation of Responsible AI in Africa, including discussions on epistemic injustice of global AI ethics, opportunities and challenges, an examination of AI co-bots and chatbots in an African work space, gender and AI, a consideration of African philosophies such as Ubuntu in the application of AI, African AI policy, and a look towards a future of Responsible AI in Africa. This is an open access book

Pursuing the good life: displacement, inclusion, and wellbeing among Congolese in Nairobi, Kenya

This thesis explores the everyday experiences and conceptualizations of ‘the good life’ among Congolese living in Nairobi, Kenya. Drawing on nine months of ethnographic fieldwork in Nairobi, Kenya, in 2018/19, I argue that migrants in the city forge inclusion and wellbeing through the leveraging of fluid identities, development of social interdependencies, and cultivation of spaces of belonging. At the time I conducted research, and still to this day, the restrictions to formal employment and mobility put in place by the Government of Kenya presented significant barriers to both registered refugees and undocumented migrants. Restrictive governmental policies, along with the humanitarian imagery surrounding ‘the refugee’ figure- a suffering, passive, and unidimensional persona- belies the complex and vibrant lives of Congolese in the city. In this thesis I explore what it means to be a ‘refugee’ and ‘Congolese’, and how fluid constructs of identity are built and deconstructed through sartorial expression and consumerism. I highlight how socio-political exclusion is navigated through informality and social networks, and how the metropolis provides key spaces that are shaping and shaped by dynamic interplays between transnational mobility and global consumerism. On an epistemological level, I argue that to better understand the migrant experience, it is vital to learn what they themselves determine to be important and relevant in their lives. Situated within the ‘anthropology of the good’, this thesis presents an ethnographic reframing of narrow institutions and discourses surrounding the ‘refugee persona’, offering broader analytical parameters that consider values, preferences, aspirations, and strategies among Congolese in Nairobi for a life better than the one presented to them by the state and humanitarian regime. In doing so, I contribute to debates in the fields of Forced Migration, Aid and Humanitarianism, and African Studies by generating a greater understanding of the dynamism of forced migration and the aspirations and values of urban migrants on the margins of society

Responsible AI in Africa

This open access book contributes to the discourse of Responsible Artificial Intelligence (AI) from an African perspective. It is a unique collection that brings together prominent AI scholars to discuss AI ethics from theoretical and practical African perspectives and makes a case for African values, interests, expectations and principles to underpin the design, development and deployment (DDD) of AI in Africa. The book is a first in that it pays attention to the socio-cultural contexts of Responsible AI that is sensitive to African cultures and societies. It makes an important contribution to the global AI ethics discourse that often neglects AI narratives from Africa despite growing evidence of DDD in many domains. Nine original contributions provide useful insights to advance the understanding and implementation of Responsible AI in Africa, including discussions on epistemic injustice of global AI ethics, opportunities and challenges, an examination of AI co-bots and chatbots in an African work space, gender and AI, a consideration of African philosophies such as Ubuntu in the application of AI, African AI policy, and a look towards a future of Responsible AI in Africa. This is an open access book