Introduction

In an interview in Chimurenga magazine, provocatively entitled ‘The Internet is Afropolitan’, Achille Mbembe is quoted as saying: ‘Technology is nothing without the capacity to make people dream. That is where the power of technology resides.’ I believe that the imagination that is vested in the power of technology carries with it a re-imagining of urban futures. Clues as to how this future is actively re-imagined in urban practices can be found in the vignettes captured in this book. Throughout the three themes preceding this chapter, the interface between local cultures and technology appropriation has been largely implicit, though central to the overall theoretical trajectory of this book.

In their book on The Public and Their Platforms, Carrigan and Fatsis (2021) write of the tendency of platforms to disassociate from place, predominantly through the sidestepping of local regulatory environments, Uber being a prime example. The experiences documented in this book suggest otherwise. In the discussion of SafeBoda in Chapter 3, for example, the influence of the cultural and regulatory environment influences the introduction of the app in different country contexts. Regulatory frameworks do impact on how platform urbanism lands, but they are not always documented or enshrined in legislation. Such frameworks can be negotiable, as in the boda-boda industry in Uganda, for example, where operational parameters are a continuous source of debate.

There are more subtle dynamics at work that relate to localized notions of public and private, as well as the more experiential informants of place. Beyond regulation and urban planning guidelines are the ‘ways of doing’ and local forms of being in the city that inform place and elements associated with its making. The remediation of public life through digital exchange, the sharing of experiences and information across scales, and the hybrid nature of the socio-technical networks that underpin these experiences all contribute to a reframing of the public (Odendaal, 2021b).

This final thematic chapter explores the notion of the public in more detail, exploring several dimensions that inform this, such as some of the dynamics that are specific to African urban spaces that impact public culture and place, in order to understand the less overt, yet ingrained, qualities that influence the appropriation of technology in particular contexts.