Conclusion: The Future of African Cultures in Hyper-techno Colonial Modernity

There are two very important points this quick-paced chapter raises by way of conclusion. First, is the point about the role of new media technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI), in African culture and cultural industries. Most studies on digital media technologies and culture have focused primarily on the materiality of media technology as an instrument for cultural production and creativity. Yet from a decolonial studies perspective, technology is an intrinsic part of not only colonial modernity and imperial systems but also coloniality in its physical, material, and seductive form. Media technology is also a relational concept: it represents a system and a structure that unmasks relations of domination and subordination, oppression and resistance, freedom and unfreedom between the West and non-West. Technology is never neutral. The chapter interrogates the question: What are Africans doing to transform digital media technologies to re-invent and redefine their cultural identities in ways that resist racist stereotypes of the (neo)colonial gaze? There is no doubt that digital media technologies have become an inextricable part of the African creative economy and cultural industries. However, there is no clarity on where African creativity and storytelling lie between the pursuit of profit and the moral summons for cultural decolonization as a pillar of African cultural freedoms. Second, the chapter discusses the role of African languages in African cultural industries. It argues that the continued use of colonial languages in postcolonial Africa is not in the interests of the African masses, but the African elites who benefit from the colonial modelling of the continent. The chapter rejects the continued use of English, French, and Portuguese as definitive of African cultural industries and creative economies. It suggests a remapping of indigenous languages within the framework of decolonial multilingualism as a philosophy that counteracts the legacies of colonial multilingualism of divide and rule.