In my doctoral research at the University of Cape Town, I am using ethnography and archival inquiry to understand medical materialities, the ethics of care, data, artificial intelligence (AI) and evolving healthcare infrastructures in modern Zambia. I work with a cohort of fellows thinking about the Fourth Industrial Revolution, AI and the ethics of care in Africa, each with unique research questions across the continent.

My interest in anthropology began while pursuing my bachelor’s in social sciences at the University of Cape Town, reading about the epistemologies of health in medical anthropology. Towards my honours and master’s in anthropology, I researched the intersections of tuberculosis and early childhood (the first 1000 days) in villages around Maphisa, a township in rural Matabeleland South, Zimbabwe. Although my upbringing was in Bulawayo, I’ve known Maphisa since childhood, where my paternal roots lie. However, I discovered through ethnography the multiple overlooked patterns pointing to a political economy, structural violence and migration as fundamental factors contributing to the province’s high prevalence of tuberculosis. With a growing urban landscape in this rural area, I went deeper to contextualise how childhoods are constructed around fragmented urbanity and controversial development. I was fascinated by numerous non-governmental organisations dotted across Maphisa, all of which aimed at solving poverty that persisted regardless. This led me to pursue a second master’s in cultural and development studies in Leuven, which unpacked the shortcomings of developmental paradigms in the Global South. A part of this program was fieldwork on the gentrification of Danseart, a chic and hipster district in Brussels whose development widely differs from that in the developing community.

This background may appear removed from my current research focus, but these phenomena on the continent are becoming embedded into supportive technologies, with technology being leveraged into developmental paradigms. I arrived at my current research topic after spending over a year in Brainport Eindhoven, where I worked with cohorts of technologists, engineers and business professionals to bring innovation into business: one of which was a capacitive micromachined ultrasound transducer device and the other, a photocatalytic nanomaterial. Besides hardware, AI also forms a major part of Brabant’s industrial ecosystem, supporting multiple applications such as healthcare. I reflected profoundly on this material culture and its constitutive part of what makes us human. In Africa, where the postcolonial condition presents inequalities, infrastructures are fragmented and digital technology is widely supported by mobile phones; how is humanity situated in the materiality of digital infrastructure?

When reflecting on life in Southern Africa, I’m interested in how coded technology is situated within developmental paradigms and postcolonial modernisation projects. Furthermore, how technologies are imbued with cultural and social meanings that shape how they are used and perceived, reinforcing or challenging normativity. By paying attention to the adopted technologies that support healthcare, public health, and care infrastructures, I hope to add value to the dearth of scholarship on the ethics of care and AI in the Global South and the development of technologies that solve for this demographic. My doctoral fieldwork in Zambia encompasses the historical chronology of hospital and patient data and the emergence of digital healthcare technologies shaping the country’s care infrastructure and ethics.

This PhD is supported by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Ivan Karp Doctoral Research Award (a component of the African Critical Inquiry Programme), the Andrew Mellon Foundation, the Max & Lillie Sonnenberg Scholarship and the French Institute of South Africa. This project has become one of Mozilla Foundation’s winning projects that examine AI’s relationship with African communities.

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Some formal milestones:

• 2021 – 2024: University of Cape Town — Doctor of Philosophy, Anthropology. Topic: Mapping the Ethics Embedded in Artificial Intelligence Technologies and Healthcare Infrastructures in Zambia

• 2018 – 2020: Katholieke Universiteit Leuven — Advanced Master of Sciences, Cultural and Development Studies

• 2015 – 2018: University of Cape Town — Master of Social Sciences, Anthropology

• 2016 – 2016: Hasso Plattner School of Design Thinking — Foundations of Design Thinking

• 2014 – 2014: University of Cape Town — Bachelor of Social Sciences (Honours), Anthropology

• 2011 – 2013: University of Cape Town — Bachelor of Social Sciences, Sociology & Social Development

  *Résumé here