Techlienation and Decolonizing Reparations in African Intra-diasporic Contexts

ABSTRACT

This study conceptualizes techlienation from the historical standpoint of imperialism, which has created a legacy of sociocultural entanglements within asymmetrical relationships in Africa. It argues that the vestiges of imperialism are perpetuated through certain technological affordances that require new approaches to the interpretation of alienation within emergent African intra-diasporic contexts. It therefore explores the theorization on alienation from the Hegelian normative/ontological perspective that holistically interrogates man’s objectification outside of the Absolute Spirit; and the Marxian descriptive historical cum socioeconomic contextualization of the politics of separating man from the products of his labour. The study also establishes the theoretical underpinnings of alienation in Africa within anti-imperial discourses, especially following its application to the experiences of slavery and colonialism in the quest for decolonisation. It subsequently contends that the forces of neo-imperialism have appropriated digital tools, especially those of new information and communication technologies, to transform the operational dynamics of digital labor in reinforcing cultural imperialism while creating African intra-diasporic contexts. The study concludes that the reparations debate should incorporate the reality of digitally afforded cultural estrangement through the quest for digital justice, as it relates to content creation and dissemination, while postulating the need for Afrocentric retooling and remodeling of today’s digital culture.

KEYWORDS:

• Techlienation
• alienation
• cultural imperialism
• reparations
• decolonialization

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Suffice to mention that Kumar (2021) teased out the interpretive nuances of both concepts from an etymological perspective in exploring the mutation of the positive connotation of the words “colony” and “imperial,” broadly implying “cultivation” and “expansion” to the negative meanings of “colonialism” and “imperialism,” which accentuates the global asymmetrical dynamics of power, as implemented in the subjugation and ill-treatment of fellow humans by others. While the earlier consideration may have been apt within the context of Western scholarship, it is the position of this study that the acts of resistance from enslaved and colonized peoples reflect their nonconsensual disposition to the positive perception of imperial or colonial governments as the cases were.

2 The use of African identity in this study is generic without the presumption of a unified identity, since it is layered with complexities across local and transnational boundaries.

3 For detailed accounts on the nature of African resistance to slavery and colonialism, see Moussa Iye, Schmidt and Lovejoy (2020) and Campbell (1985).

4 The word “man” as used in this study is conceived as a gender-neutral term devoid of the encumbrances of discourses on power in gender relations and interpretations.

5 This implies when one is separated from an entity with which one shares, or ought to share, a connection of involvement. It thus entails the inability to connect to something we hold dear as applicable to different forms of life (see Jaeggi 2014).

6 For details on African countries rich in uranium deposits and their prospects see Kinnaird and Nex’s (2016) study on the Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania, South Africa, Malawi, Namibia, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Niger.

7 All three apparently under the control of an individual.

8 This, of course, is a fallout of global conversations around state autocracy and intolerance for dissents.

9 The mass man, for Anders, is brought about through a principle of dispersal in the production process. In this process, individuals are provided with a similar image of the world (products for consumption) from different locations (in the seclusion of their homes). The mass man is subsequently caught up in the paradox of paying for his labour on self-production (see Anders 1956, 15).

10 The coloniality of power is expressed through the sustainability of the colonial legacy of inequality that continues to expand the frontiers of asymmetry within global political and economic relations (see Cooper 2023).

11 This meeting was a follow-up to a previous one organized by Chief MKO Abiola (a philanthropist and past presidential candidate who was denied his mandate by the military administration), and was hosted in Lagos, Nigeria in 1991. One major outcome of the 1991 meeting was a demand for an African Marshall Plan and the eradication of debts owed by Africans (see Hassmann 2008).

12 See “The Accra Declaration on Reparations and Racial Healing,” dated August 4, 2022, https://ibw21.org/docs/accra-ghana-reparations-summit-2022/accra-ghana-2022-declaration_english.pdf.

13 For details on the “10 Point Action Plan,” see CARICOM Reparations Commission, https://caricomreparations.org/caricom/caricoms-10-point-reparation-plan/#mobi-nav.

14 For a discussion on integrating the principle of alterity into the efforts at decolonization, see the multistakeholders’ analysis from the lens of migration and integration by Astolfo and Allsopp (2023).

15 Colpani, Mascat and Smiet (2022) envisioned that the subaltern essentializing orientation of decolonial proponents ought to be moderated by the intrinsic historical contextualisation of postcolonial critics within the present momentum of discourses on decoloniality and anticolonialism.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Philip Olayoku

Philip Olayoku has a doctorate in peace and conflict studies from the University of Ibadan where he taught as an adjunct. He is the founder and coordinator of the West African Transitional Justice Centre (WATJCentre) and also the Chair of Marcel Advisory. He consulted on the media and terrorism project for the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID) and serves on the international advisory board of the Medecins Sans Frontieres for developing modules on their Speaking Out Case Studies. His research interests include transitional justice, security studies, ethnicity, digital power dynamics, philosophy of technology and transnational relations on which he has several policy and research publications. His recent works include “TecHedonism as metaverse in the future of Nigerian netizens’ sociopolitics” (in Digital Policy Studies Journal) and “Anti-Semitism: Intersecting Politics, Religion and Consanguinity among Jews in Nigeria” (in Bulletin de l’Observatoire international du religieux).