Abstract

abstract:

Recent works of speculative fiction from Africa and the African Diaspora portray imaginative technologies, providing a lens through which to reconsider the concept of collaboration as it relates to African historical contexts. This article analyzes depictions of collaborative technologies in the novels Nigerians in Space by Deji Bryce Olukotun (2014); The Hangman’s Replacement: Sprout of Disruption by Taona Chiveneko (2013); and Zoo City by Lauren Beukes (2011), emphasizing how the texts reflect upon histories of industrialization, mining, and bioprospecting in eastern and southern Africa. Analyzing these works, the article emphasizes how collaboration around technological projects may take unexpected forms, involve the supernatural, or have unanticipated effects. Technologies often emerge in spaces where unequal actors meet and intersect with unseen or unpredictable forces. Ultimately, forms of collaboration in these novels emphasize the aspects of loss and risk, as well as possibility, that emerge from technological projects in the context of histories of inequality and disenfranchisement.

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