Axe 3 - Education et savoirs au Sud

Technological Globalization from Below

Axe de rattachement au Ceped : Axe 3 - Éducation et Savoirs au Sud

Responsable scientifique

QUET Mathieu

Membres du Ceped participant au projet

Résumé

New technologies are entering daily lives and reshaping societies across the globe at an ever-increasing pace. While technological change has been largely analysed as stemming from Northern countries that industrialized first since the 18th and 19th century, this picture is not satisfying to explore the drivers and consequences of technological change in the context of the growing contribution of developing and emerging countries to the global economy. Surely, technologies originating from the global North are having a huge impact on societies in the global South, but analyses of technological change need to integrate other kinds of circulations (South-South and South-North, schematically), to develop a better understanding of the global world’s technological becoming. In order to understand the magnitude of this shift, we engage in a research programme that applies the framework of « globalization from below » to global markets of technology (Tarrius 2002 ; Mathews et al 2012 ; Choplin & Pliez 2018). The fundamental assumption guiding this research is that the development of technologies will take a path that is specific to societies from the Global South.

The project addresses this key issue through two complementary efforts : one yearly seminar and a collective writing work. The seminar’s sessions (started via closed meetings in 2020 and furthered through an open seminar from 2021) document the social issues pertaining to technological expansion in developing and emerging contexts, based upon empirical research. By doing this, they highlight the scientific and technological dynamism of the Global South countries, as well as the often devastating consequences of technological development for subalternized populations. Second, they aim at characterizing technological globalization « from below » through the formulation of analytical tools ; they will therefore enrich the conception of technical expansion from an original standpoint, paying particular attention to processes of technological expansion in relation to developing contexts, where labour informality and resource-scarce innovation are major concerns. The seminar is interdisciplinary with a major « Science & Technology Studies » focus. Complementarily, a collective writing work aims at supporting and publishing junior scholars’ research upon the topic of science, technology and globalization viewed from the South.

Mots-Clés

Technologies, marchés, régulation, informalité

Zone géographique (terrains de recherche)

Inde, Kenya, Maurice, Brésil, Tchad, Equateur, Sénégal, Ghana

Calendrier

  • 2020
  • 2024

Contact

Résultats et valorisation

2020 -.. : Seminar « Technological globalization from below »
September 2021 : Writing Workshop in Sermizelles

Publications

Thèmes