Bezuidenhout et al. are largely analyzing why Kenyan and South Africans are not able to / don’t use Open Access and Open Data resources more. However, they are not able to study usage (because it isn’t being used). My project differs in this regard because I am interested in the sociality of the sharing and the questions that arise when we begin to share. Because of my methodology (building organizational archives for the various organizations and using those as probes for discussions), I hope to be able to move beyond what is not (narratives of lack of / deficit) to discussions that take as a starting point that it is possible. I think such an analysis will be able to avoid a well-worn narrative of deficit that is often common in studies of Africa.
