What Do Science, Technology, and Innovation Mean from Africa? ed. by Clapperton Chakanetsa Mavhunga (review)

For several decades, the studies on the interwoven relationship between science, technology, and innovation (STI) in Africa have been characterized by mono-disciplinarity. Written predominantly by economists, STI works delve into investigating how African economies should modernize and benefit by importing technology from outside the continent, or how it has deteriorated from the imported technologies—a scenario which has delineated the postcolonial relations between the Global North and South. Wangwe's Exporting Africa: Technology, Industrialism and Trade is a good example of such an analytic framework. Arguably, this emphasis on Schumpeterian innovation frames technology as undermining a component of society as if technology and economy exist in a vacuum. Only a handful of STI works have discussed the interplay between innovation, economy, and society, including such classics as Rodney's How Europe Underdeveloped Africa and Edgerton's "Creole Technologies."

Mavhunga's edition demarcates itself from the economic perspective on STI by arguing that Schumpeterian analysis fits better in the Global North and its industrial economies than in African socio-economic contexts. It does so by examining the epistemological foundations of African STI to challenge various positions that portray Africa negatively. The temporal-spatial dimension is distinctly apparent in the volume from the introduction through chapter 9. The volume's multidisciplinarity is commendably vindicated by variegated analytical tools from philosophy (chapter 1), history (chapter 2), archaeology (chapter 3), ecological anthropology (chapter 4), cultural anthropology (chapter 5), and policy studies (chapter 9). Different themes and analytical tools support the premise that African STI should employ unique methodologies and philosophies because it stems from different historical, social, spatial, economic, and epistemological foundations. Put bluntly, the volume puts forward a methodological denunciation of previous African STI studies, on the grounds that they were researched and written using inappropriate methods and theories. In the authors' view, methods and theories of the existing STI studies were blindly appropriated from the Global North, where the tradition was to subscribe to grand narratives. Chapter 4, for instance, urges scholars to rethink how they articulate the concept "innovation" by denouncing the "machine" dimension and in its place explore Africans as conscious and active innovators—a social construction of technology perspective.

In so doing, Mavhunga's edition revisits the 1960s argument of Africanists that called for the recovery of African agency that was so conspicuously missing in colonial narratives. The contributors have innovatively and commendably employed maps, pictures, tables, and conceptual tables to illustrate various statements. The language is also lucid and intelligible enough to be read by undergraduate and graduate students as well as professors.

Mavhunga's edition is correct in critiquing several STI works because of their methodological poverty. Unfortunately, the critique does not provide sophisticated and detailed discussion of alternative methods and theories to readers. To argue that researchers should revolutionize theories of knowledge by employing novel ones and discard all that is "colonial" and old, paradoxically, reduces the complexity and diversity of Africa. As historian Luise White reminded Africanists in 2015, writing African post-colonial history is necessarily "hodgepodge" in nature. When we try to go away from conventional historical practice, we cannot forsake everything associated with older traditions because they do have something to offer. Thus, I argue that African STI studies cannot be completely different from other historical, cultural, social, economic, and political studies in methodology. STI studies cannot invent new epistemologies and methodologies and ignore all that is perceived as old, conventional, and colonial.

Mavhunga does well to trumpet STI voices from the continent and to urge African scholars in the continent to take the lead. Ironically, however, only one out of nine chapters is authored by an African scholar residing in Africa. Lastly, the STI perspective of this volume emphasizes research on small-scale technological materiality and practice at the expense of studying large technical systems (LTS) such as roads, railways, and electrical and water systems. Given the boldness of the volume title, a chapter on...