The Maasi & Technology

Kurengworkx

rom time immemorial, the pervading name tag as it relates to Africanism and the response to westernization or what many would prefer to refer to as ‘civilization’ has always been Culture Clash. However, for the Maasai people of East Africa, another tag has been given them. The external gaze has always been that they are a people who prefer to stay away from civilization and ‘all’ the technological advancements that come with it. They are gazed as backward, afraid and unflinching towards all that defines the evolving 21st century world and are thus unwilling to relate with it. Infact, they have been termed ‘Technophobic’. ? As the winner of the 2017 African Rising Photography Competition, I was afforded the opportunity to travel the very lands of Kenya and as such chose to embark on an exploration of the Maasai people, just to gaze at them through my own lenses. I hoped to uncover for myself the assertions about the Maasai in these regards. I found out that the Maasai had a reverse memo