Fabricating Silicon Savannah: The Making Of A Digital Entrepreneurship Arena Development

This book provides a comprehensive overview of technology start-up arenas in Nairobi and examines their global place. Dr. Michel Wahome’s research examines technoscientific production in conditions of global power geometry, specifically in African settings. A thematic thread through her work is the effect of place and standpoint on knowledge production. This book provides a comprehensive overview of technology start-up arenas in Nairobi and examines their global place. These start-ups are popularly perceived as representing future prosperity that is incorporated in the present. The author examines how developing country arenas lay bare the power asymmetries and taken-for-granted assumptions that determine which technoscientific imaginaries become globalized and universal, and are supported by legitimizing narratives, logics and institutions. A framing of ‘catch-up’ or ‘leapfrogging’ for technoscientific development that is based on capitalist modernity is regarded as incontrovertible—so much so that alternative values and approachesto technology production are rarely contemplated. This book documents how actors in Nairobi’s startup arena relate to these imaginaries and the affects, enactments and places that they produce. This book provides a comprehensive overview of technology start-up arenas in Nairobi and examines their global place. These start-ups are popularly perceived as representing future prosperity that is incorporated in the present. The author examines how developing country arenas lay bare the power asymmetries and taken-for-granted assumptions that determine which technoscientific imaginaries become globalized and universal, and are supported by legitimizing narratives, logics and institutions. A framing of ‘catch-up’ or ‘leapfrogging’ for technoscientific development that is based on capitalist modernity is regarded as incontrovertible—so much so that alternative values and approaches to technology production are rarely contemplated. This book documents how actors in Nairobi’s startup arena relate to these imaginaries and the affects, enactments and places that they produce.