Digitality, Mobility, and Sociality in Context: A Decolonial-Exploratory Study of Youth in South Africa

This colloquium explores the lives of young people in Makana municipality, Eastern Cape Province, South Africa’s poorest province. It aims to understand how they use the digital and mobile technologies available to them, navigate daily challenges, maximize social and digital connections, and enhance (or not) their social and personal well-being in resource-poor environments. There is a clear need for in-depth research into digital media practices that focuses on the nuances of the deeply unequal and racially diverse, but also rich and varied, digital societies that are emerging in Africa. This colloquium will also reflect on ethical possibilities, complexities, and possible strategies for dealing with research on young people within the sub-Saharan African context, embracing the notion of ‘Epistemologies of the South,’ a decolonial approach that foregrounds marginalized youths’ lived experiences as a site of knowledge production on digitality.

Uzuegbunam proposes utilizing innovative, decolonial approaches such as mobile diaries, mobile diary interviews, decolonial listening, photovoice, and spatial mapping to reveal young Africans’ digital realities, giving them a sense of agency, and disrupting the notion of ‘the digital age’ as a marker of uniform globalization and techno-modernity.