I have a new publication coming out soon in the Review of African Political Economy, with my colleague Mark Graham. The paper is based on the research we have been carrying out over a number of years in Africa. It deals with the role African digital labour is playing in the global information economy and… Read More »
Mark Graham and I have just published a new article in the African Geographical Review. The article’s main argument is that economic upgrading in the South African BPO industry can lead to both social upgrading and downgrading among contact centre agents. Anwar, M. A. and Graham, M. (2019) Does economic upgrading lead to social upgrading… Read More »
If we’ve been quiet about our Digital Entrepreneurship in Africa research, it’s because Michel, Mark, and I have been busy drafting chapters for an upcoming monograph. In the book, we use our empirical data to work through some of the development hopes that have been associated with digital entrepreneurship, for instance, that Africa may leapfrog… Read More »
African digital entrepreneurs like Tayo Oviosu (see tweet in the picture) are forcefully pursuing the aspiration that African technologies will one day be used by millions of users around the world. We want to share a working paper that discusses this ambition. In the paper, we’re examining the possibilities for African digital firms to scale… Read More »
It has almost been a year since I finished the final draft of my dissertation about African innovation hubs. In the meantime, a number of publications have come out about hubs in Africa and elsewhere, some in high-profile venues (references are below). This probably signifies that hubs are becoming accepted as a unique and interesting organizational… Read More »
I have a short piece in New Statesman about the rise of what I am calling a planetary labour market. I wrote it because this will be the first year in human history in which a majority of the world’s population is connected to the internet. The internet is therefore no longer a network that… Read More »
The Geonet team will attend next year’s Global Conference of Economic Geography (GCEG) in full strength, running two hopefully lively sessions. Both run under the larger theme “Digital Economies, Digital Connectivity, Digital Margins.” Papers can be submitted between 15 Nov 2017 and 15 March 2018 on the GCEG website (https://www.gceg2018.com). Digital Economies, Digital Connectivity,… Read More »
The ‘techie’ archetype is the mascot of our age. Generally imagined and depicted as a youth, most often male, wearing a casual sweat-shirt, and carrying a backpack that contains the tool of his trade—the laptop. The techie dreams of building a software ‘app’ that commands a global following and so ingenious that wealthy investors line… Read More »
The trade union leaders from across the African continent are coming together to meet in Dakar, Senegal for 4th UNI Africa Regional Conference on March 23-25, 2017. This will be a gathering of 161 Unions from 40 African countries and roughly 500 participants will be attending it, along with invited guests from across the world. We… Read More »
The geography of published and codified knowledge has always had stark core-periphery patterns. Just look at the below map of where academic articles are published from. However, increasing digital connectivity has sparked many hopes for the democratization of information and knowledge production in economically peripheral parts of the world. If you can access the sum… Read More »