De African Digital Rights Network (ADRN) heeft een nieuw rapport gepubliceerd waarin de toevoer en verspreiding van digitale surveillance technologie in Afrika in kaart is gebracht. Onderzoeker Anand Sheombar van het lectoraat Procesinnovatie & Informatiesystemen is betrokken bij het ADRN-collectief en heeft samen met de Engelse journalist Sebastian Klovig Skelton, door middel van desk research de aanvoerlijnen vanuit Westerse en Noordelijke landen geanalyseerd. De bevindingen zijn te lezen in dit Supply-side report hoofdstuk van het rapport. APA-bronvermelding: Klovig Skelton, S., & Sheombar, A. (2023). Mapping the supply of surveillance technologies to Africa Supply-side report. In T. Roberts (Ed.), Mapping the Supply of Surveillance Technologies to Africa: Case Studies from Nigeria, Ghana, Morocco, Malawi, and Zambia (pp. 136-167). Brighton, UK: Institute of Development Studies.
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This paper describes the work done to track the supply chains of sur-veillance technologies from the global North to African governments for illegal surveillance of their citizens. We conducted desk research to analyse the supply side of surveillance technology exported to African countries. Our preliminary findings show nine key exporting states-actors for surveillance technologies to Africa. These are China; European Union agencies, and member states France, Germany, Italy; Israel, United Kingdom, Russia, and the United States of Amer-ica. Regarding the specific surveillance technologies being transferred, each export-ing state tends to have a focus area, both in geographic area and within the five surveillance technology categories covered by this study. The paper identified six motives for state surveillance, including the suppliers' perspective. These are: 1) surveillance as legitimacy for state security, 2) surveillance for political gain, 3) surveillance as diplomacy, 4) surveillance as a tool for development, 5) Surveil-lance as neocolonialism, and 6) surveillance as business opportunity. Further re-search is needed to deepen the analysis of surveillance technologies exports to the African continent and the human rights violations.
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Creative tourism has recently emerged as an important area of tourism development, particularly in the Global North. In the Global South, studies of the profile of creative tourists and their motives for partaking in creative tourism are limited. This paper investigates creative tourism demand among South African millennials, analysing what motivates their participation and developing a descriptive consumer profile. CHAID analysis was used for segmentation, revealing a group with a high participation intention and a second group with a low probability of creative tourism participation. Creative tourism intentions were linked to knowledge acquisition, skills and escape motivations, and demographic characteristics including relationship status and gender. Respondents were more likely to participate in domestic rather than international creative tourism, indicating the potential for creative tourism development in South Africa. The findings could help managers and policymakers meet the needs of creative tourists, addressing shortfalls in product development, experience design and marketing.
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This chapter explores the impact of risk perception among Dutch residents towards South Africa as a travel destination. This study utilises an online self-administered questionnaire made on the platform Qualtrics. The survey was administered to 308 Dutch respondents to investigate their risk perceptions and travel behaviour towards South Africa. The findings reveal that Dutch residents generally perceive South Africa as an unsafe destination; however, this perception does not deter the respondents from considering visiting the country. Interestingly, respondents with past travel experience perceive South Africa as safer and express a higher inclination to revisit. Moreover, male respondents perceive South Africa as safer than their female counterparts. While South Africa is regarded as an appealing destination in terms of its rich environment and vibrant culture, it is said that the country needs to improve as a tourist hotspot due to concerns surrounding crime and hygiene.
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Terms like ‘big data’, ‘data science’, and ‘data visualisation’ have become buzzwords in recent years and are increasingly intertwined with journalism. Data visualisation may further blur the lines between science communication and graphic design. Our study is situated in these overlaps to compare the design of data visualisations in science news stories across four online news media platforms in South Africa and the United States. Our study contributes to an understanding of how well-considered data visualisations are tools for effective storytelling, and offers practical recommendations for using data visualisation in science communication efforts.
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An installation based on the research for the last book in the Ebifananyi series. The book presents a largely visual social biography of the photograph Henry Morton Stanley made in 1875 of Ssekabaka Muteesa 1 of Buganda and his chiefs. The group portrait is one of the first photographs made in the territory currently known as Uganda. The social biography I made is partly based on historical sources and partly ‘written’ in the form of a chain of responses to and interpretations of those historical sources. These responses and interpretations were, as a result of my interest in the photograph, made in 2016 and 2017 by (mostly Ugandan) artists.This installation is what you could call a spatial assemblage. It includes prints, collages, projections and a book. All of these components show – or are directly related to – the pictures made by explorers John Hanning Speke and James Augustus Grant during and around their visit to Muteesa, thirteen years before Stanley made the photograph. Considering Speke’s and Grant’s drawings gives an insight into the appreciation for pictures on the side of the Baganda and the use of these same visual materials by the visitors. It helps to understand the context in which Stanley brought out a camera to make a ‘drawing with light’ that Muteesa and his chiefs may never have had a chance to see themselves.The title “My Guide Through Africa” is taken from words jotted down by James Augustus Grant on the cover of an instruction book on how to make watercolours. He carried the book with him on his journey through ‘Africa’. As this book was a ‘Guide’, so are the drawings made by him and his colleague. Now that we know them, we cannot avoid for our gaze to be moulded by journal notes and drawings made in the 19th century.Recent responses to the historical pictures were made by Violet Nantume, Herman van Hoogdalem, Stella Atal and me (in collaboration with R. Canon Griffin). Additional thoughts about components of the installation can be found in this blogpost and of course in “Ebifananyi 8, Ekifananyi Kya Muteesa – The King has been pictured (by many)” (for sale online in a set with three or all seven other books in the series here).The installation is part of the group show ‘Dwell Act Transform’ on artistic research in the North (of the Netherlands). The historical materials presented are part of the collections of the Royal Geographical Society (Speke), National Library of Scotland (Grant) and The Ugandan Society (Stanley’s and Speke’s books).
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Urban planning will benefit from tools that can assess the vulnerabilityto thermal stress in urban dense cities. Detailed quick-scan heat stressmaps, as made in this study for Johannesburg, have proven valuable inthe decision-making process on this topic. It raised awareness on theurgent need to implement measures to tackle the effects of climatechange and urbanization. Awareness on heat stress has led to theimplementation of measures to mitigate the effects of climate change.As in other countries, nature-based solutions (e.g. green roofs and walls,swales, rain gardens, planting trees etc) are considered in urban areasin South Africa for various reasons. The awareness of the effect ofnature based solutions on heat stress is still low, which can be improvedby the use of heat stress maps. Some of these measures are alreadymapped on the open source web tool, Climate-scan(www.climatescan.nl) for international knowledge exchange aroundthe globe.
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Enforcement of national and international laws banning illegal tropical timber trade hinges on independent origin verification, such as with genetic or chemical wood properties. This is of particular concern in Central Africa, where illegal trade prevails. However, tracing methods have not yet consistently achieved high accuracy (>90%) at small spatial scales (<100 km). Where high precision is required but individual methods fall short, combining methods may improve results, because drivers of wood properties differ. Here, we assessed the individual and combined identification potential of three methods (genetics with 238 plastid Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms, 3 stable isotopes, and 41 elemental concentrations). The combined approach achieved unprecedented accuracy in Central Africa, identifying 94% of samples within 100 km of their origin, outperforming individual methods (50–80%), and verifying real origin for 88%. These findings show that method complementarity boosts tracing accuracy and spatial precision, crucial for high-value timbers or high-risk regions.
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A reflection on the impact of Paul Julien's photographs in the form of a letter to him, part of the larger investigation into his legacy.
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There is a clear demand for a collaborative knowledge-sharing by online climate adaptation platforms that contribute to (inter)national knowledge exchange and raising awareness about climate change. Climate adaptation platforms (CAPs) can contain decision-support tools to facilitate the process of decision-making, and may include capacity building, networking, dissemination to assist planning and implementation of proven adaptation concepts such as Nature-based solutions (NBS) to mitigate floodings, drought, and heat stress. From 2014 over 6000 global climate adaptation projects have been mapped on an open source platform ClimateScan using citizen science. This chapter describes the potential of this climate adaption platform by illustrated case studies with mapped climate adaptation measures in Africa, Asia, and Europe. The case studies illustrate engagement and tangible results related to online platforms such as: the period of relevance of ClimateScan, inclusiveness and engagement of users in different stages and continents. Workshops in Indonesia illustrate the need for validation of needs from potential users before implementing CAPs. Analyzing projects in Africa showcase best management practices in water conservation and water demand management that are of interest in many other regions in the world facing drought. In Europe detailed analysis of over 3000 climate adaptation measures in relation to neighborhood typologies is inspiring urban planners and stormwater managers to design, plan, and implement climate resilient measures with more confidence. These three global examples illustrate that mapping, promoting, and sharing knowledge about implemented proven concepts is raising awareness, contribute to community-building, and accelerate climate action around the world.
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