Bulelani Jili is a Meta Research Ph.D. Fellow at Harvard University. His research interests span Africa-China relations, cybersecurity, law, and more. He is also a Fellow at Yale Law School, the Atlantic Council, and the Belfer Center, and he is conducting research with the China, Law, Development project at Oxford University, aiming to understand the nature of the order that underlies China’s new globalism. He has advised leading think tanks and governments, and his writing has appeared in publications including African Affairs, Nature, and Politico. Prior to attending Harvard, Bulelani worked at the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research in South Africa as a Visiting Researcher. He earned an M.Phil. from Cambridge University, an M.A. in Economics from Yenching Academy of Peking University, and an A.B. honors, in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics from Wesleyan University.
Bulelani’s research project investigates the spread of Chinese surveillance technology in Africa, primarily in Kenya. Precisely, its goal is to explore the effects of facial recognition systems on (1) state sovereignty and the modalities of governance of local populations, including crime and economic management; (2) civil society, with respect to the sense of privacy, and of in/security, it instills in citizens; and (3) practices of social discrimination it may reify. The project asks: what are the hidden costs of facial recognition systems and their un/intended consequences in Kenya? Accordingly, what does the spread of AI-powered digital artifacts augur for the future of Beijing and its firms in Africa? This is a question with implications for the study of Africa-China and, more crucially, the global order at large.