From Techno-Junk to Lifeworld-Device: notes on technological appropriation beyond the myth of progress

Abstract

ABSTRACT Through a fragmented collection of shared experiences and reflections, the two authors – from Kenya and the UK/Netherlands – give an impression of their practice-based research in Kenya into the reappropriation of obsolete technologies. In this, they connect to and work through their our own relationships with consumer culture and post-colonialism. In the context of a discussion of a traditional Kenyan ritual technology and the ideological implications of globalized techno-standardization, two example devices – found and developed by the authors – are presented that are aimed at connecting to the developers’ and users’ immediate lifeworlds.