Foreword

In a series of conferences entitled Penser global (thinking global), Edgar Morin proposed combining "development" and "envelopment": "All that is development in the classical sense of the term must be accompanied by what surrounds it, i.e. communities, fraternities."1 This book, edited by Julien Atchoua, Jean-Jacques Bogui and Saikou Diallo which I have the honor to write the foreword for, provides a very insightful review of the link between development and envelopment. Rooted in the multiple realities of African societies and their relationship to ICTs (Information and Communication Technologies), the various texts in this book provide valuable insights into the diversity of situations and the dynamism of socio-cultural appropriation of digital technology.

Before focusing on everything that makes a difference, one thing must be noted: the omnipresence of technologies in the many sectors of our societies, and beyond, in the very weaving of our lives, even if this takes place to different degrees. Digital technology is based on a process of discretization of data and declined through multiple techniques, at the forefront of which are the Internet and the Web. It deploys a hegemonic presence, whose reality is no longer discussed today. If the history of technology allows us to situate the digital "phenomenon" in relation to other major breakthroughs, such as printing2, the fact remains that certain dimensions specific to digital technology give it a quite exceptional character. The massive convergence of all types of data on media and in formats that allow automated computational processing profoundly challenges not only the traditional frameworks for the exercise of thought or the production of knowledge, but also our perception of the world. Digital tools help shape our thoughts, representations, cultures and societies. Digital technology is becoming a real "environment"3, an ecosystem in which we act, interact, evolve and live. Thus, the conditions for a "digital humanism" are developed, because "the current technology, in its global dimension, is a culture in the sense that it sets up a new context on a global scale [.]"4.

Once these major precepts of digital technology have been established, it is essential to add a few nuances. Not all countries, societies and individuals are equal in terms of equipment, access and skills. Reiterating the false evidence of digital technology and its associated technologies still seems necessary at a time of supremacy that tends to obscure many persistent inequalities. The concept of the "digital divide" has been around for a long time and remains, in its own way, a relevant lever for maintaining vigilance with regard to certain implicit factors related to the use of digital technology. The political-industrial policies and initiatives that multiplied in the 2000s put the issue of equipment and materials at the top of their agenda. In order to fill a gap in equipment (mobile phones, computers, etc.) and access (mainly to the Internet), these policies and initiatives have facilitated inclusion in a connected society. In this context, it is assumed that the reduction of technological inequality (concerning equipment, access or skills) will inevitably require the reduction of other inequalities (social, cultural, cognitive, to name but a few).

Several chapters in this book testify to this greater accessibility, whether with distance learning or through the role of mobile telephony in financial transactions. The commoditization of mobile phones in African countries thus makes it possible to reconfigure economic dynamics (from a centralized model to a decentralized model) while embracing social and cultural logics, whose characteristic examples can be seen through the circulation of money in connection with migration flows or within a country. This flexibility provided by the widespread presence of connected technologies makes it possible in this context to promote inclusion (societal and financial) and reduce significant territorial inequalities. Health is another major area where the use of technologies, and here too mobile telephony (in a mobile health5 approach), is a valuable means of reducing inequalities, whether they be geographical or professional. Gilbert Toppé's text on telemedicine and the Genesis Telecare platform in Cameroon (Chapter 11) clearly shows the possibilities of developing access to quality care.

Nevertheless, while there are still strong questions about equipment and access (such as the problem of electricity in Africa), and while this is an essential prerequisite for the development of uses, it is not enough. On the one hand, it would be illusory to hope for equity through a utopian alignment of equipment indicators. Moreover, when the use of digital technology and the multiple devices that accompany it is reduced to their purely technical dimension, it results in denying the sources of uncertainty, the margins of interpretation, the socio-cultural dimensions or even the heterogeneous forms of otherness. Thus, other dimensions must be considered in interpreting the possible "gaps" in relation to digital technology, such as the deficiencies in the mastery of knowledge and skills related to an information and digital culture or even the know-how in terms of methods. Beyond a reductive vision of a "gap" to be filled in terms of equipment, it is therefore necessary to think about the differences that underlie singularities, whether at the individual level or at the level of the collectives, people and communities that make up the essence of this digital "multiversity".

Another approach to the false evidence of digital technology is particularly obvious with digital social networks. Several chapters in this book show the very positive role that these social networks, including applications such as WhatsApp or the iconic Facebook platform, have had in the mobilization and participation of citizens in the processes of democratic vigilance and public action. The case of the Balai Citoyen (Citizen's Broom) in Burkina Faso is exemplary in this respect. Since the first Arab revolutions of 2011, in Tunisia or Egypt, examples have multiplied throughout the world, showing the potential for increased mobilization through these social media, as well as relaying demonstrations and actions in the physical world. This reveals the extent to which traditional institutions (political, media) can in a way be overwhelmed. However, the weight of the technical configuration of the device and the nature of the algorithm should not be underestimated in managing affiliations and connections authorized, and therefore oriented, by the social network platform. Thus, it was shown6 that the success of the Yellow Vests movement in France at the end of 2018 and the beginning of 2019 was correlated with the change in Facebook's algorithm in January 2018, favoring the refocusing of information on local communities or communities of similar interests, which has encouraged a viral spread of mobilization throughout France. The system proposed by Facebook thus emerges as an "algorithmic facilitator" of politics, bypassing institutional obstacles to the democratic and reactive circulation of a citizen's voice. But this is inevitably accompanied by notorious perverse effects. The Cambridge Analytica scandal, the manipulation of voters via Facebook or Twitter during American or English election campaigns, and more generally, the place of fake news in the digital information panorama, illustrate this other obscure side of the power of digital social networks.

Through these few milestones, we can clearly see the ambivalence of digital technology and its technologies, between curative and toxic effects, which can be described as "pharmacological" if we take up the terminology and reading proposed by Bernard Stiegler7. This intrinsically pharmacological nature of digital technology is pertinently illustrated by the various texts of this book, between the "positive" uses of technologies for financial flows, training, access to healthcare or even political and citizen mobilization and their "deviant" uses such as those practiced by grazers in Côte d'Ivoire, with forms of know-how transmission and professionalization of cybercriminal activity, as well as that of scams on the Internet. Opportunities and risks therefore appear to be consubstantial with digital technology. From the birth of the Internet in the 1960s and the 1970s, between military and militant roots, to the arrival of the Web in the early 1990s and up to today, the human and social adventure of digital technologies is characterized by a profusion of initiatives, successes and major upheavals that constantly oscillate between gains in individual freedoms, the production of a collective voice (via digital social networks), new polarizations (particularly economic)8 and poorly transparent calculation logics (governance by algorithms)9.

At the origin of these crucial reconfigurations supported by digital technologies, three factors of change can be easily identified: spatial disruption, temporal disruption and ubiquity. While changes in space and time are part of the trajectory of a history of the information and communication media, they are currently taking place on a globalized scale and in an almost instantaneous manner that has no precedent. Ubiquity and access to the masses (singular or collective) represents a more unprecedented factor, with many...