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As of 13 February 2023, South Africa declared a national state of electricity disaster. In this paper we consider the impacts of global tech giants on the land, environment, people, heritage, and the technological landscape in Cape Town, South Africa. Our methods consist in long-term ethnographic fieldwork (Waltorp 2010, 2019, Waltorp et al 2022) and decolonial design anthropological approaches (Kambunga 2023) as we work with a group of local assistants and critical friends (www.digisatproject.com). We start from the controversy surrounding Amazon Web Services Headquarters: In 2021, the Observatory Civic Association and the Goringhaicona Khoi Khoi Indigenous Traditional Council filed an urgent notice with the High Court of South Africa to interject the construction of the Amazon River Park development on sacred land, where confrontations between the Peninsula Khoekhoe and the first Dutch settlers took place (genesis of colonialism in South Africa), and one of the only natural floodplains in Cape Town. Respondents argued that the site has no visible heritage significance, and the interjection will hinder economic development and job creation, an urgent concern, with Cape Town home to the most data centres on the continent. Data centres provide the computing and storage power that is essential to realising the smart digital futures furthered by corporate strategists and government policymakers. Yet, the data centres that underpin these futures are themselves energy-intensive enterprises (Howe et al. 2015) placing burdens on national energy supplier Eskom and energy shortages for the neighbouring communities (Pollio and Cirolia 2022). Data are entangled with water, wind, oil and other elements. Resource prospecting and extraction of energy were driving forces of colonial expansions. The material effects this has had on contemporary human and more-than-human life as well as geopolitical formations continue: How might we think together beyond techno-solutionism and -determinism to imagine technological futures otherwise.

Waltorp, Karen and Asnath Paula Kambunga. 2023. "Land, Legacies and Energy Futures in Cape Town, South Africa." In 4S Paraconference X EiJ: Building a Global Record, curated by Misria Shaik Ali, Kim Fortun, Phillip Baum and Prerna Srigyan. Annual Meeting of the Society of Social Studies of Science. Honolulu, Hawai'i, Nov 8-11.

The Disaster Management Act of 2005 constitutes the responsibilites of the NIDM to be human resource development, capacity building, training, research, documentation and policy advocacy in the field of disaster management. The organization aims to promote disaster management as a high priority in the national goverment. They also aspire to create "a culture of prevention" pertaining to disasters that involves all stakeholders. 

The Minister of Home Affairs acts as the President, and the Vice Chairman of the NDMA (National Disaster Management Authority) acts as Vice President. The body of the organiation is comprised of 42 members including secretaries of nodal Ministries and Departments of Government of India and State Governments, the heads of national scientific, research and technical organizations, and eminent scientists and practioners. The governing body of the organization, which runs its day to day operations, is comprised of 16 members, and is chaired by the Vice Chairman of the NDMA, with the Secretary of Home Affairs acting as the Vice President. 

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