AI: Inclusive Innovation or Digital Dispossession? Inequality and African Ways of Knowing

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Article / Journal

Author(s) / editor(s):
Lebogang Peter Khoza , Zikhona Necolette Ngqula

Year: 2026

Keywords: AI and epistemicide; Ubuntu and indigenous knowledge; digital extractivism
Language(s): English

Abstract:
This article examines how AI’s integration into labor and knowledge systems in Africa can reproduce colonial-era exclusions and displace indigenous, community-based knowledges. Drawing on African epistemologies (e.g., Ubuntu) and cultural metaphors (tokoloshe), it analyzes risks from automation, data extractivism, and the privileging of data-driven expertise over oral/experiential knowledge, and proposes Afrocentric, community-centered pathways for more inclusive, humane technological futures.

https://doi.org/10.1007/s44206-026-00248-4

Post created by: Virginia Signorini

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