Abstract:

Electric Vehicles (EVs) are promoted as key contributors to decarbonizing road transport and as harbingers of a yet-to-be-realized green transportation revolution. With global sales reaching a high in 2021 despite economic slowdowns, EVs appear to simultaneously signal a trendy sustainability ethos and an innovative futurity for individuals, corporations, and governments alike. Chinese manufacturers play a key role in these developments, and in parts of the Global Majority, they are viewed as essential partners for not only leveraging the potential of green technologies but also for participating in the contested waters of 'innovation culture’. 

In this talk, I present ethnographic work with the engineering team of a Ghanaian EV startup to unpack the work being done to build and maintain EVs amid changing geo- and techno- politics around Chinese power, renewable energies, and the future of Africa. I focus on the team's day-to-day activities with their co-workers, local and regional customers, as well as their Chinese suppliers, highlighting the material and discursive labor that undergirds the business of EV production and use in Ghana. Through this, I aim to make visible the human infrastructures -- specifically the maintenance of machines, bodies, and affects -- that carry visions of a 'green techno future' for a region viewed as the 'edge of the frontier'. 

Bio:

Seyram Avle Associate Professor of Global Digital Media in the Department of Communication at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and a Global Horizons Senior Fellow (Fall 2024) at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study. Dr Avle's research, funded by various institutions including the US National Science Foundation (NSF), focuses on digital technology cultures and innovation across parts of Africa, China, and the United States. This work primarily takes a critical approach towards understanding how digital technologies are made and used, as well as their implications for issues of labor, identity, and futures.