Abstract
The goal of this paper is to look at the inclusion agenda in digital entrepreneurship through a postcolonial lens. While recognising that inclusion has long been embedded in development models relevant to digital entrepreneurship, most literature assumes an economic logic of inclusion, through incorporating people so they can benefit from being a part of a globalised economy. However, this viewpoint ignores the underlying historical, political, economic, and social dimensions that influence how inclusion occurs in digital entrepreneurship. To accomplish this, we draw on postcolonial theory to examine how a Zambian innovation hub negotiates inclusion dynamics between the hegemonic Western narrative as well as local understandings, needs and preferences. We describe the hub’s tensions in trying to fit into the global innovation agenda, and how this impacted inclusion within the hub. In doing so, we hope to provide a broader and more critical framework for thinking about inclusion in digital entrepreneurship.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
https://vc4a.com/afd/innovation-for-women-in-africa/ [Accessed 13.04.2022].
- 2.
Data analysis was initially undertaken as part of the first authors PhD based on these frameworks.
References
Mutua, W.; Mbwana, A.: Innovative Africa: The New Face of Africa, Essays on the Rise of Africa’s Innovation Age (Sambuli, N. (ed.); Afrinnovator) (2012)
Nambisan, S.: Digital entrepreneurship: toward a digital technology perspective of entrepreneurship. Entrep. Theor. Pract. 41(6), 1029–1055 (2017)
Shen, K.N., Lindsay, V., Xu, Y.: Digital entrepreneurship. Inf. Syst. J. 28(6), 1125–1128 (2018)
Davidson, E., Vaast, E.: Digital entrepreneurship and its sociomaterial enactment. In: Proceedings of the Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (2010). https://doi.org/10.1109/HICSS.2010.150
Friederici, N., Wahome, M., Graham, M.: Digital Entrepreneurship in Africa: How a Continent is Escaping Silicon Valley’s Long Shadow. The MIT Press (2020). https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/12453.001.0001
Ndemo, B., Weiss, T. (eds.): Digital Kenya: An Entrepreneurial Revolution in the Making. Palgrave Macmillan UK, London (2017). https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-57878-5
Pollio, A.: Acceleration, development and technocapitalism at the Silicon Cape of Africa. Econ. Soc. 51(1), 46–70 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1080/03085147.2021.1968675
World Bank Enhancing Access to Finance for Technology Entrepreneurs in Southern Africa. Washington, DC (2014).https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/21073
Silvia Masiero, M.N., Ravishankar,: Exploring hybridity in digital social entrepreneurship. In: Nielsen, P., Kimaro, H.C. (eds.) ICT4D 2019. IAICT, vol. 551, pp. 295–306. Springer, Cham (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18400-1_24
Paxling, L.: Exploring technology design among mobile entrepreneurs in Kampala: an open space workshop. Electron. J. Inf. Syst. Dev. Countries. 86(2), 1–11 (2019)
Jack, M., Avle, S.: A feminist geopolitics of technology. Glob. Perspect. 2(1), 1–18 (2021)
Trauth, E., Joshi, K.D., Yarger, L.K.: ISJ Editorial. Inf. Syst. J. 28(6), 989–994 (2018)
Jiménez, A., Zheng, Y.: Tech hubs, innovation and development. Inf. Technol. Dev. 24(1), 95–118 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1080/02681102.2017.1335282
Jiménez, A., Zheng, Y.: Unpacking the multiple spaces of innovation hubs. Inf. Soc. 37(3), 163–176 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1080/01972243.2021.1897913
Jiménez, A.: Inclusive innovation from the lenses of situated agency: insights from innovation hubs in the UK and Zambia. Innov. Dev. 9(1), 41–64 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1080/2157930X.2018.1445412
George, G., McGahan, A.M., Prabhu, J.: Innovation for inclusive growth: towards a theoretical framework and a research agenda: innovation for inclusive growth. J. Manage. Stud. 49(4), 661–683 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6486.2012.01048.x
Gupta, J., Pouw, N.R.M., Ros-Tonen, M.A.F.: Towards an elaborated theory of inclusive development. Eur. J. Dev. Res. 27(4), 541–559 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1057/ejdr.2015.30
Foster, C., Heeks, R.: Conceptualising inclusive innovation: modifying systems of innovation frameworks to understand diffusion of new technology to low-income consumers. Eur. J. Dev. Res. 25(3), 333–355 (2013)
Swaans, K., Boogaard, B., Bendapudi, R., Taye, H., Hendrickx, S., Klerkx, L.: Operationalizing inclusive innovation: lessons from innovation platforms in livestock value chains in India and Mozambique. Innov. Dev. 4(2), 239–257 (2014)
Refsgaard, K., Bryden, J., Kvakkestad, V.: Towards inclusive innovation praxis in forest-based bioenergy. Innov. Dev. 7(1), 153–173 (2017)
Armstrong, D., Armstrong, A.C., Spandagou, I.: Inclusion: by choice or by chance? Int. J. Inclusive Educ. 15(1), 29–39 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1080/13603116.2010.496192
Cookson, T.P.: Working for inclusion? conditional cash transfers, rural women, and the reproduction of inequality. Antipode 48(5), 1187–1205 (2016)
Hickey, S., du Toit, A.: Adverse incorporation, social exclusion, and chronic poverty. In: Shepherd, A., Brunt, J. (eds.) Chronic Poverty, pp. 134–159. Palgrave Macmillan UK, London (2013). https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137316707_7
Scheba, A., Scheba, S.: REDD+ as ‘inclusive’ neoliberal conservation: the case of Lindi. Tanzania. J. Eastern Afr. Stud. 11(3), 526–548 (2017)
Mignolo, W., Walsh, C.: On decoloniality: concepts, analytics. Duke University Press, Praxis (2018)
Jack, G., Westwood, R., Srinivas, N., Sardar, Z.: Deepening, broadening and re-asserting a postcolonial interrogative space in organization studies. Organization 18(3), 275–302 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1177/1350508411398996
Bhambra, G.K.: Postcolonial and decolonial dialogues. Postcolonial Stud. 17(2), 115–121 (2014)
C T Mohanty,: “Under western eyes” revisited: feminist solidarity through anticapitalist struggles. Signs: J. Women Culture Soc. 28(2), 499–535 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1086/342914
Bhabha, H.K.: The Location of Culture. Routledge (2012). https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203820551
Bhabha, H.K.: Of mimicry and man: the ambivalence of colonial discourse. In: Literary Theory and Criticism. Routledge India (2021).
Ponzanesi, S.: Touchstones. In: Paradoxes of Postcolonial Culture: Contemporary Women Writers of the Indian and Afro-Italian Diaspora. State University of New York Press (2004).
Quijano, A.: Coloniality and modernity/rationality. Cult. Stud. 21(2–3), 168–178 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1080/09502380601164353
Atkinson, P., Hammersley, M.: Ethnography and participant observation. Handb. Qual. Res. 1(23), 248–261 (1994)
Myers, M.D., Newman, M.: The qualitative interview in IS research: examining the craft. Inf. Organ. 17(1), 2–26 (2007)
Gathege, D., Moraa, H.: Draft Report On Comparative Study On Innovation Hubs Across Africa (Issue May) (2013)
Friederici, N.: Innovation hubs in Africa: what do they really do for digital entrepreneurs? In: Taura, N.D., Bolat, E., Madichie, N.O. (eds.) Digital Entrepreneurship in Sub-Saharan Africa. PSEA, pp. 9–28. Springer, Cham (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04924-9_2
Rafi Khan, F., Westwood, R., Boje, D.M.: “I feel like a foreign agent”: NGOs and corporate social responsibility interventions into third world child labor. Hum. Relat. 63(9), 1417–1438 (2010)
Briter Bridges. Africa Investment Report (2021). https://briterbridges.com/reports. Accessed 14 Apr 2022
Musse, E.R.: UN-SILICON VALLEY: Lessons on Entrepreneurship, Diversity, and the Movement to Build an Alternative Startup Paradigm. Off Path Ventures LLC (2019).
Rõnnblom, M.: Bending towards growth: discursive constructions of gender equality in an era of governance and neoliberalism. In: The Discursive Politics of Gender Equality: Stretching, Bending and Policymaking, pp. 105–120. Routledge (2009)
Ahmed, S.: On Being Included: Racism and Diversity in Institutional Life. Dure Press (2012)
Cornell, S., Hartmann, D.: Ethnicity and Race: Making Identities in a Changing World (2nd editio). Sage Publishing, New York (2007).
Jimenez, A.A., Roberts, T.: Decolonising neo-liberal innovation: using the andean philosophy of ‘Buen Vivir’ to reimagine innovation hubs. In: Nielsen, P., Kimaro, H.C. (eds.) ICT4D 2019. IAICT, vol. 552, pp. 180–191. Springer, Cham (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19115-3_15
Alcadipani, R., Khan, F.R., Gantman, E., Nkomo, S.: Southern voices in management and organization knowledge. Organization 19(2), 131–143 (2012)
Carrim, N.M.H., Nkomo, S.M.: Wedding intersectionality theory and identity work in organizations: South African Indian women negotiating managerial identity. Gend. Work. Organ. 23(3), 261–277 (2016)
Cook, K.: The psychology of silicon valley: ethical threats and emotional unintelligence in the tech industry. Springer International Publishing, Cham (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27364-4
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2022 IFIP International Federation for Information Processing
About this paper
Cite this paper
Jiménez, A., Foster, C. (2022). Negotiating Inclusion and Digital Entrepreneurship in a Zambian Innovation Hub: A Post-colonial Perspective. In: Zheng, Y., Abbott, P., Robles-Flores, J.A. (eds) Freedom and Social Inclusion in a Connected World. ICT4D 2022. IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology, vol 657. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-19429-0_13
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-19429-0_13
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-19428-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-19429-0
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)