The Coded Gaze: Grappling with Kenya’s Adoption of Chinese Surveillance Tools

Bulelani Jili

This paper examines Kenya’s adoption of AI-powered surveillance technology. The procurement of these tools is embedded within processes that support the privatization of the state—the outsourcing of state functions to Chinese tech giants like Huawei, which transforms practices of governance. This work is all done within the context of a supposedly weak African state that seeks to ameliorate its incapacities from the colonial encounter. Drawing on 14 months of ethnographic fieldwork in Nairobi—including interviews, policy analysis, and institutional observation—this article interrogates the transformative claims made on behalf of surveillance technologies. It explores their implications for public safety, Africa–China relations, and the digital development agenda. The analysis demonstrates how the promise of technological solutions frequently obscures local political, economic, and social complexities, contributing to the illusion that digital interventions offer neutral and frictionless remedies to deeply entrenched structural challenges.