If the hype generated by Tech Bros, social media influencers, and venture capitalists is to be believed, AI is barreling toward Africa’s cities with promises to improve governance, planning, food systems, infrastructure, and city-centered financial circuitry. While its possible value remains unknown, its potential to transform the everyday lives and livelihoods of urban residents across the Continent is indisputable; from street economies to wealthy enclaves, no facet of African urban life will be untouched.
Scholars of urban Africa have long scrutinized utopian and high-modernist visions of the African city, exposing the tensions inherent in aspirations toward “world-class city-ness,” sustainable urbanism, and Afro-futurist urbanism. Yet the sheer scale of financial and (geo)political investment now driving AI-centered entrepreneurialism and “intelligent” infrastructures in cities across the continent compel us to confront a new set of stakes. What are the wide-ranging consequences of AI for cities in Africa? At present, questions are many, but concrete answers are elusive.
This panel therefore invites papers that interrogate the role, presence, and impact of AI (broadly defined) and smart technologies in Africa’s cities. Contributions may be conceptually driven, empirically grounded, or speculatively oriented — and we especially welcome work that considers where African urban scholarship is headed in light of these transformations. Questions papers might engage include: How will AI impact urban livelihoods and what kinds of socio-economic relationships or mechanisms for extraction might emerge? What kind(s) of politics is generated or precluded by AI infrastructures? What happens to informal or social infrastructures as AI infrastructures become pervasive? To what extent is the introduction of AI different from previous efforts to technologically transform African cities? What might the differential impacts of AI be across first, second, and third tier cities?
The panel organizers especially welcome papers with an interdisciplinary perspective, that adopt a (cross-regional) comparative approach, or research from younger scholars and graduate students.
Please reach out to us with questions. We look forward to reading your submissions!
Closed for new submissions.
