Chair : Vissého Adjiwanou, University of Cape Town, South Africa
Description
Digital-age data (“big data”) is becoming popular and can provide information that can profoundly shape our understanding of social phenomena and improve our quantitative research approach. While the use of such data is still in its infancy in African studies, their importance cannot be neglected.
Objectives
This panel on Computational Social Science (and mostly on quantitative methods) aims to:
1. Introduce computational social science to African social science scholars
2. Organize workshops to:
a. Present a review of studies using digital-age data and methods from an African perspective
b. Offer instruction in methods for handling, manipulating and processing these data
3. Develop a research collaborative working group for specific research within the continent using this approach.
4. Hone the quantitative ability of young researchers within the continent.Population census in Africa provide basic information used to develop all public policies, but one problem is that the rapid burst of knowledge of African populations was not accompanied by any real effort to preserve the information collected. Computerized data storage technologies have evolved at such a rapid pace that, quite often, with no measures having been adopted to transfer the data of the 70s and 80s censuses to new storage media, the data have now been completely lost, either because the media once used to store such information is now obsolete or because they have simply disappeared. It is urgent and crucial to protect the demographic heritage of African population censuses.