Mapping Data Labour Supply Chain in Africa in an Era of Digital Apartheid: a Struggle for Recognition

TL;DR

This paper maps Africa's data labour supply chain, highlighting precarious working conditions and the need for recognition, through participatory research involving workers, unions, and academics.

Contribution

It provides the first comprehensive map of Africa's data labour industry and introduces a methodology centered on workers' collective recognition.

Findings

Data labour exists in 43 African countries involving 17 firms.

Workers face short-term contracts, psychological stress, and economic instability.

The study demonstrates a participatory methodology emphasizing workers' demands for recognition.

Abstract

Content moderation and data annotation work has shifted to the Global South, particularly Africa, where workers at business process outsourcing (BPO) companies operate under precarity to serve Global North needs. We address the invisibility of this data labour supply chain and the underdocumented working conditions of its workforce. Drawing on a participatory collaboration between academics, an NGO, and a union, we conducted desk research and deployed a questionnaire (n=81) attuned to unions' organising goals. Our findings show that data labour spans 43 out of 55 African countries, involving 17 major firms serving predominantly North-American and European clients, with workers employed on short-term contracts, under psychological stress and economic instability - conditions that obscure the competences, i.e. adaptability and resilience, that their work demands. We contribute the first comprehensive map of Africa's data labour industry and demonstrate a methodology that centers workers' collective actions in documenting their conditions, drawing on Honneth's "struggle for recognition" to capture workers' demands for professional and social acknowledgement.