The coloniality of surveillance: Digital technologies and state power in Zimbabwe

Digital surveillance scholarship in Africa has paid limited attention to the historical processes shaping state power in post-independence contexts. This paper develops the concept of the coloniality of surveillance to address this gap in Zimbabwe. Drawing on Afro-decolonial theory and documentary analysis, it traces how digital surveillance reworks colonial practices of monitoring, classification and political control. The paper argues that digital technologies expand state capacities while reshaping political knowledge, administrative authority and democratic citizenship. The coloniality of surveillance thereby provides a historically grounded framework for understanding digital governance and post-independence state power in Africa.