Ubuntu Linux in Zimbabwe: the digital unhu in open source practices

Abstract

In this article, I argue for an alternative history of open source told from the perspective of the Southern African nation of Zimbabwe. This perspective on open source deviates from standard histories in that it reveals a more comprehensive relationship to technologies and its political possibilities by including the understudied region of Zimbabwe. I premise this analysis based on the concept of ‘digital unhu’, a concept that sketches out a Zimbabwean inflection of immaterial labor and contains three components of the fusion of new technologies with older traditions, an emphasis on collaborative practices, and a prominence placed on mobility. Examining this framework and these concepts through the aid of the case studies, Zim.doc, and the website Wild Forest Ranch, I provide evidence of the ways that open source practices are articulated to the local, historical, and political nuances of the region. I argue that the effort to disseminate information and skills to populations required to maneuver around the conditions of food scarcity, high levels of unemployment, and violent political repression existing under Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe particularly highlights digital unhu’s characteristic of mobility.