The Fourth Industrial Revolution and the Recolonisation of Africa by Everisto Benyera

The Fourth Industrial Revolution and the Recolonisation of Africa by Everisto Benyera

This book argues that the fourth industrial revolution, the process of accelerated automation of traditional manufacturing and industrial practices via digital technology, will serve to further marginalise Africa within the international community.

In this book, the author argues that the looting of Africa that started with human capital and then natural resources, now continues unabated via data and digital resources looting. Developing on the notion of "Coloniality of Data", the fourth industrial revolution is postulated as the final phase which will conclude Africa’s peregrination towards recolonisation. Global cartels, networks of coloniality, and tech multinational corporations have turned big data into capital, which is largely unregulated or poorly regulated in Africa as the continent lacks the strong institutions necessary to regulate the mining of data. Written from a decolonial perspective, this book employs three analytical pillars of coloniality of power, knowledge and being.

Highlighting the crippling continuation of asymmetrical global power relations, this book will be an important read for researchers of African studies, politics and international political economy.

The Open Access version of this book, available at

http://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781003157731, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license

Everisto Benyera is Associate Professor of African Politics at the University of South Africa.