„Give Work, not Aid“

Digitale Fabrikarbeit in Nord-Uganda

Abstract

In recent years, the term "digital divide" has been used to describe the social, political and economic effects that are felt when entire regions and populations are either only partially connected or completely decoupled from the internet. The paper examines how new forms of digital work in African contexts promote, and in some cases accelerate, this disconnect and the resulting inequalities. To examine this ethnographically, the paper focuses on Samasource, an organization that is financed through the mediation of digital microwork to low-skilled sectors of the population. From here the term ‘data enrichment practices‘ will be used to refer both to the global circulation of commercialized "raw data" for machine learning, and to a specific type of local broadband internet use. The paper aims to find out how this form of neo-Tayloristic, non-innovative work plays into global and local discourses on labour and digital education.