Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the multiple conspiracy theories that surround Al Shabaab's continuing insurgency across a fragmented Somalia, and at the same time considers how the structures of the Somali-language digital public allow for their emergence, circulation and deployment by elite political actors.

Paper long abstract:

Al Shabaab's extensive clandestine networks across and beyond a fragmented Somalia lend themselves well to local crypto-political interpretations of their alleged role and utility for a variety of different political actors. Various groups or administrations have periodically accused each other of secretly supporting Al Shabaab's militancy for different territorial or clan-based agendas. This occurs within the context of wider contestation over the ongoing reconfiguration of the Somali state. These conspiracy theories circulate across a digital public characterised by an equally high level of fragmentation, intense social media contestation between supporters of different political projects, and production of various types of 'fake news'. These claims are also periodically appropriated by elite political actors. Given the number of competing administrations - as well as local and foreign military actors with boots on the ground in Somalia - it is unsurprising that the crypto-politics of the Al Shabaab war has become a significant feature of local debates in both on and offline spaces.

This paper draws on the presenter's previous research on these narratives, focusing on Somali-language texts circulating through various interconnected media networks. This then linked to the presenter's preliminary data on some of the effects of algorithms in Somali-language digital platforms: for instance, search engine auto-completion suggestions that foreground particular (and controversial) Somali-language keywords, such as that of actors' 'clan' identity. The paper argues that such algorithmic phenomena need to be examined in relation to online (mis)information sharing and expressions of crypto-politics in digitally-connected conflict settings such as Somalia.

Paper short abstract:

This paper probes Nairobi's digital deathworlds where the routine killing of suspected gang member already profiled on Facebook, reveal policing practices that are both a product of history, and a routine of the state's performance of security in Nairobi's Eastlands.

Paper long abstract:

This paper draws from Victoria Bernal's concept of infopolitics-how power is exercised and expressed through digital communication- and Achille Mbembe's concept of death-worlds, in which specific people are subjected to conditions of life conferring upon them the state of the living dead-to explain Nairobi's Eastlands culture of police extra-judicial killings that are foretold, announced and published on Community Policing Facebook groups- which I refer to as Kenya's digital deathworlds. In particular, this paper reveals how urban geocorpographies-space and bodies, in the Eastlands neighbourhoods of Kayole, Dandora and Mathare, where the routine killing of suspected gang member already profiled on Facebook, reveal policing practices that are both a product of history, and a routine of the state's performance of security in Eastlands. Drawing on field and digital ethnographic work in Eastlands/Facebook Groups, this paper provides an empirical description of the digital deathworlds, whose many facets explains perceptions of crime and justice-among them a public support of controversial policing methods and insights into Nairobi's gang cultures.

Paper short abstract:

In Kenya today the imperatives typically reserved by the state are the province of the country's largest corporation, Safaricom. We examine the dynamics of cryptopolitics by training attention on the rumors, accusations, and smears directed at the firm and its prominent executives.

Paper long abstract:

In Kenya, many of the imperatives typically reserved by the state are today the province of the country's largest corporation, Safaricom. Once a telecommunications firm, Safaricom is now responsible for tax collection, national security, and other social services. Even its commercial ventures like M-Pesa, a mobile money service, are understood to be in the interest of the nation-state, its citizens, and their developmental aspirations. This paper analyzes the dynamics of cryptopolitics in this new corporate-state dispensation. Drawing on the concept of cryptopolitics, which usefully points to the ambiguities of digital technologies, we examine the dynamics of dissent by training attention on the rumors, accusations, and smears directed at the firm and its prominent executives. Both the content of this discourse -- concerning questions of distribution, belonging, and authenticity -- and its form -- circulating on WhatsApp, blogs, and everyday conversations -- are indicative of the types of politics afforded by the rise of the corporate nation-state and the digital infrastructures undergirding it. But even more, they offer insight into the particular tropes and idioms through which technical faith, political loyalty, and commercial relations are judged to be trustworthy (or not) in contemporary Kenya, raising critical questions of regarding obligation and the contours of citizenship. In a context of frequent accusations of double-dealing, concealment, and hypocrisy, as well as insistent autochthonous claims to authenticity and legitimacy, we ask what paid protestors, defamation lawsuits, and cross-ethnic marriages tell us about who can successfully claim to speak on behalf of Kenya, Africa's "Silicon Savannah."

Paper short abstract:

This paper explores how a politics of concealing and revealing information plays out in situations of crisis, and how it is mediated through social media. Second, I explore how Burundian refugees in Kigali deal with these flows of information, emotionally and in terms of making sense of the conflict

Paper long abstract:

Having the power of the 'parole', and controlling and withholding information have always been important aspects of political power in Burundi. Members of the royal court were trained in the art of concealing emotions and information, and it is still associated with class status and ethnicity. The focus on controlling information has fostered its opposite: namely rumours and conspiracy theories that seek to uncover 'secrets and lies' and search for hidden truths and deeper meanings. Whether they exist or not, there is a strong sense of an omnipresent crypto-politics, playing a central role behind the scenes.

In this paper, I explore how the politics of concealing and revealing information plays out in situations of crisis and displacement, and how it is mediated through social media such as Twitter and Whatsapp. The present political crisis in Burundi has been intricately linked with struggles over information. The media in Burundi were vocal in criticising the President's bid for a third term and journalists were among those most systematically persecuted by the regime in its clamp down on the demonstrations. Since then, the debates have moved to twitter, Facebook and Whatsapp. Based on a dataset of tens of thousands of tweets, I explore firstly how the political field has shifted to these arenas. Secondly, I explore through ethnographic fieldwork among Burundians who fled the country to neighbouring Rwanda, how they deal with these flows of information, emotionally and in terms of making sense of the conflict.

Paper short abstract:

The essay explores Eritrean political humor, suggesting that repression invites parodic sensibilities alert to the falsity by which people get by and through which the regime maintains power. Humor that states on the surface the opposite of what it means is suited to making sense of such conditions.

Paper long abstract:

The structure of comedy, how things are made funny, which involves copying with a twist, has a particular resonance with dictatorship which, like humor, involves insincere performances and distorted logics. This essay explores contemporary Eritrean political humor that circulates online in texts and videos and also by word of mouth inside Eritrea and among the diaspora. Under Isaias Afewerki, official claims about how people benefit from the regime contradict citizens' everyday experiences and informal knowledge. Rumors circulate, motives are called into question, and facts on the ground are hard to come by given the government's tight control over information. Repression does not simply produce opposition; it creates uncertainty, duplicity, and ambivalence. Such conditions invite a parodic sensibility alert to the artifice and falsity by which people get by and through which the regime sustains its power. Cynicism and conspiracy theories arise from the profound understanding that nothing and no one can be trusted at face value. The duplicitous form of humor that may state on the surface the opposite of what it means or combine contradictory narratives is well-suited as a means of representing and making sense of such conditions. Instead of seeking to offer closure with some definitive answer, humor opens up a conceptual space of imagination and interpretation, exposing the contradictions of dictatorship to a distinctive kind of scrutiny. As such humor is a form of knowledge production.

Paper short abstract:

The game "Muslim Mali" allowed gamers to shoot down French aircraft. In a context of military intervention, it reveals the tensions in Malian popular culture about the French ex-colonizer, the West and elites. This paper discuss this religious-security-post-colonial nexus through digital politics.

Paper long abstract:

Seen so far as a 'model of democracy', Mali was turned upside down by a coup d'Etat in 2012, revealing a growing social unrest driven by a rejection of the elites. The return from Libya of ex-combatants, the rebellion in the North, the rise of Islamist groups and the displacement of population amplified the instability. In this volatile context, the tensions in the North-Mali were translated into military issues, joining the "Global War on Terror" launched by the Bush administration. In September 2012, ECOWAS decided to send a military intervention with the support of France. If the progress of the French forces was first acclaimed, the stalemate of the situation gave way to anti-French sentiments. Meanwhile, in 2013, a game titled "Muslim Mali" was upload and allowed gamers to pilot a plane to shoot down French aircraft. Game-over pop-up text praised the dead player as a martyr to jihad. Compared to official narratives, this game blurred the line between the good and the bad. The game was also part of a strategy of recruitment in Mali but also in France. So it was a weapon in the war of media but also of human resources. Mocked by some Western media, this game reveals the contradictory tensions and emotions in Malian popular culture about the former French colonizer, the West and the ruling elites associated to the West. This paper discuss these issues by revisiting this religious-security-post-colonial nexus and the reconfiguration of power relations with the former metropolis through digital politics.

Paper short abstract:

Contemporary urban masculinities in Africa need to be reassessed in light of novel modalities of information distribution and management that emerge with new technologies. Kinois men's strategies and tactics when transgressing "offline" boundaries of who is supposed to know what, will be explored.

Paper long abstract:

In the social media era, communication platforms such as Facebook and Whatsapp provide novel ways of imagining, representing and performing masculinity (kimobali), while at the same time also challenging received ways of being and/or becoming "a man". The paper starts from the premise that secrecy and management of information are fundamental in the performance of masculinity in Kinshasa. Kinshasa is a society where kipe ya yo sociality ("mind your own business") dictates a strong individualistic regime of managing one's networks and activities, while intergenerational and gender hierarchies impose certain people to exert control and surveil others. Yet, befriending relatives, neighbours, friends, and potential and actual lovers on digital media platforms entails disrupting conventional structures of accessibility, addressivity and information sharing. Case-studies of Kinois men's digital strategies and tactics when transgressing "offline" boundaries of who is supposed to know what will show that contemporary masculinities in urban Africa need to be reassessed in light of novel modalities of information distribution and management that emerge with new technologies. Attention will be paid to tensions between surface meaning and hidden meaning in digital communication, and offline practices of hiding, masking and revealing. The material provides insights in gendered dimensions of media ideologies and politics.