School of Social and Political Science

Content

 

Africa and International Development expert Dr Mohammad Amir Anwar has published a new book examining the job-quality implications of digital work for the lives and livelihoods of African workers. The Digital Continent: Placing Africa in Planetary Networks of Work, co-authored with Professor Mark Graham of the University of Oxford, explores digital working across the continent, from Lagos and Johannesburg to Nairobi and everywhere in between.

The book explores the issues around the hopes for African development pinned on digital economy activities, ranging from employment generation to poverty reduction. African workers are carrying out various forms of digital work involving manipulation of digital data using tools such as mobile phones, computers and the internet. Examples include transcription, article writing, image tagging, search engine optimisation, and inbound and outbound customer services.

The Digital Continent investigates what this new world of digital work means to the lives of African workers. Focusing on both platform-based remote work and call and contact centre work, the book examines their job-quality implications on the lives and livelihoods of African workers.

It makes two key arguments:

1. Digital capitalism is bringing new jobs to Africa but generating uneven economic geographies.

2. These new jobs can be defined by digital Taylorism, a system of scientific management Overall, it shows that, while digital work can bring some forms of freedom and flexibility into the lives of African workers, it can also contribute towards their precarity and vulnerability.

The book brings unique insights into the emerging digital economy in Africa and the planetary networks of work in which African workers are embedded. It will appeal to diverse readers including scholars, policymakers, development practitioners, civil society members, students, and workers.