Across the volume, praxiographic studies show how data gaps shape technoscientific work and spatial practices in African settings. In health care and administrative systems, gaps appear as infrastructural deficiencies, prompting experts to improvise with fragmented data and adopt external standards—deepening dependencies and postponing structural solutions. In ecology and radioastronomy, African sites generate scarce data needed by all scientists. Here, gaps reflect limitations of global infrastructures that rely on data, prompting experts to protect access and negotiate credit when rendering their datasets globally available. Data gaps thus operate both as constraints and as strategic resources within unequal technoscientific worlds.

Contributors are Véra Ehrenstein, Georges Macaire Eyenga, Richard Sufo Kankeu, Siri Lamoureaux, Johannes Machinya, James Merron, Ronan Mugelé, Iruka N Okeke, Symphorien Ongolo, Meredith Root-Bernstein, Richard Rottenburg.