"After Bandung: Africa and China in a New Era" at Yale University (April 21-22, 2023)

"After Bandung: Africa and China in a New Era" at Yale University (April 21-22, 2023)

Veranstalter
Vivien Chang and Benedito Machava
Veranstaltungsort
Yale University
Gefördert durch
International Security Studies
PLZ
06511
Ort
New Haven, CT
Land
United States
Findet statt
In Präsenz
Vom - Bis
21.04.2023 - 22.04.2023
Deadline
20.01.2023
Von
Connections Redaktion, Leipzig Research Centre Global Dynamics, Universität Leipzig

Our goal is to gaze beyond national and regional confines to engage with the plurality of political and economic networks, discourses, tensions, transnational flows, and imaginaries that have characterized Africa’s relationship with China. Although we recognize that the history of Africa-China relations dates back to the first millennium AD, our starting point is the 1955 Afro-Asian conference in Bandung when the seeds of Afro-Asian solidarity were sown.

"After Bandung: Africa and China in a New Era" at Yale University (April 21-22, 2023)

African decolonization and the rise of China are two of the most significant developments of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, transforming international society and remaking the global political and economic landscapes. Sinologists and Africanists have made considerable inroads into understanding these twin phenomena—as well as their attendant challenges and possibilities—as subjects of inquiry in their own right. But it was not until recently that scholars have begun to investigate these crucial processes as deeply interwoven. As Africa and China continue to move towards each other at warp speed in geopolitical, diplomatic, and economic arenas, this conference aims to explore the longer arc of the increasingly axial Africa-China relationship.

Our goal is to gaze beyond national and regional confines to engage with the plurality of political and economic networks, discourses, tensions, transnational flows, and imaginaries that have characterized Africa’s relationship with China. Although we recognize that the history of Africa-China relations dates back to the first millennium AD, our starting point is the 1955 Afro-Asian conference in Bandung when the seeds of Afro-Asian solidarity were sown. In the years that followed, China contributed to national liberation movements and modernization projects in Africa, while many African states drew inspiration from the Chinese model of development and Maoist ideology to articulate their own socialist philosophies. In the last decade, China—whose search for natural resources has strengthened extractive linkages with Africa—has emerged as Africa’s main trading partner and bilateral creditor, manifesting in the proliferation of special economic zones dominated by Chinese corporations and infrastructures. While supporters of these initiatives regard Chinese development assistance as a viable alternative to Western financial institutions, critics by contrast view China as another neocolonial power. Today, more than one million Chinese citizens live in Africa as migrant workers, investors, and shopkeepers. Often nestled in gated communities with minimal contact with their host societies, they arouse racial anxieties among the local population about China’s presence in Africa. In the same vein, thousands of African traders and entrepreneurs have transformed areas of transit and temporary shelter into permanent homes in Hong Kong, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. Dubbed “chocolate cities” by the Chinese media, these enclaves represent the various scales and transnational dimensions of China-Africa encounters.

“After Bandung: Africa and China in a New Era” will bring together scholars across fields and disciplines to (re)examine the history, legacies and potential future trajectory of the Sino-Africa relationship. It seeks to understand the evolution of China-Africa encounters in the contexts of great-power competition during and beyond the Cold War, decolonization, and globalization. In light of the coronavirus pandemic, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, acute food and energy insecurity in Africa, changing norms within the Communist Party of China, mass protests in both regions, and deteriorating U.S.-China relations, we are especially interested in scholarship that sheds light on the historical roots of these contemporary challenges and developments. Possible avenues of inquiry include but are not limited to the following:

- How did Afro-Asianism ideologically, institutionally, and interpersonally overlap with and depart from such concurrent South-South alliances as the Non-Aligned Movement, the Group of 77, and the Tricontinental?
- What insights did newly independent African states draw from the successes and failures of the Chinese experiment and its “miracle” of rapid modernization?
- How did ideas about race loom over Chinese nationalism and Sino-Black relations?
- How did the Cold War and Nixon’s opening to China draw and redraw new political geographies and alliances?
- What roles did non-state actors and groups in—and intellectual and cultural discourses emanating from—both regions, as well as their diasporic communities, play in fostering or undercutting Sino-Black ties?
- What geo-strategic (re)alignments have emerged from these ties, especially after China surpassed the United States and the European Union as Africa’s main trading partner in the last decade?
- What are the implications of China’s military and economic presence in Africa amidst growing tensions between the United States and China?

This conference, sponsored by International Security Studies, will take place between April 21-22, 2023 at Yale University in New Haven, CT. We expect to cover travel and accommodations for all participants.

Professor Arne Westad, the Elihu Professor of History at Yale University, will deliver the conference’s keynote address.

Conference organizers Vivien Chang and Benedito Machava encourage scholars at all stages of their careers to apply. Interested presenters should send a one-page CV and a 300-word abstract to vivien.chang@yale.edu. The deadline for submission is January 20, 2023. Successful applicants will be notified by early February.

Kontakt

vivien.chang@yale.edu