Time, Thought, Materiality: Africa and the Fourth Industrial Revolution

Towards An Inclusive 4IR For South Africa Impact On Labour, Youth And Communities In SA

4 Sep 2019, 09:45

20m

Protea Auditorium (School of Tourism and Hospitality)

Speaker Plenary Session V

Speaker

Mr Ashraf Patel (Institute for Global Dialogue (IGD))

Description

The advent of the 4IR within elite WEF formations, is continuation of Castells’ critical theorisation of ‘informational capitalism and ‘ space of flows’ as the highest forms of new imperialism ( David Harvey, 2013). Even progressives within mainstream institutions, such as Professor Joseph Stiglitz (2009) have come to acknowledge the information power symmetries - and possibilities and applying ‘Knowledge for Development ‘ discourse, albeit within reformist agenda of World Bank, suggesting that knowledge society discourse has varying perspectives, experiences and impacts. The paper seeks to bring out these robust discourses such as the capitalism and network society thesis (Castells, 1998), Surveillance capitalism (Zuboff, 2018), Future of Work ( Brynjollefsen, 2013, ILO, 2018), Additive manufacturing and innovation (UNIDO, 2018) and global social justice campaigns regarding the social internet ( CRIS, APC 2005).