BEZUIDENHOUT, LOUISE, ANN H. KELLY, SABINA LEONELLI, AND BRIAN RAPPERT. 2017. “‘$100 IS NOT MUCH TO YOU’: OPEN SCIENCE AND NEGLECTED ACCESSIBILITIES FOR SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH IN AFRICA.” CRITICAL PUBLIC HEALTH 27 (1): 39–49.
AO: This 2017 article by Bezuidenhout et al. present empirical material from fieldwork undertaken in (bio)chemistry laboratories in Kenya and South Africa to examine the extent to which the ideals of the growing Open Science (OS) movement can be realized in a sub-Saharan context. They draw from Amartya Sen’s Capabilities Approach to analyse the challenges African researchers face in making use of freely available data, specifically, they use his theorisations of ‘conversion factors’ to understand how seemingly minor economic and social contingencies can hamper the production and (re-)use of online data. Instead of making more data available, they suggest a need to facilitate a more egalitarian engagement with online data resources.
Critical Commentary
AO: This 2017 article by Bezuidenhout et al. present empirical material from fieldwork undertaken in (bio)chemistry laboratories in Kenya and South Africa to examine the extent to which the ideals of the growing Open Science (OS) movement can be realized in a sub-Saharan context. They draw from Amartya Sen’s Capabilities Approach to analyse the challenges African researchers face in making use of freely available data, specifically, they use his theorisations of ‘conversion factors’ to understand how seemingly minor economic and social contingencies can hamper the production and (re-)use of online data. Instead of making more data available, they suggest a need to facilitate a more egalitarian engagement with online data resources.