Reconfiguring Transregionalisation in the Global South


Book Description

This volume examines the Africa-Asia relationship from a transregional perspective, namely as a set of emergent social, political and economic practices spanning a number of analytical and spatial scales. Drawing on a host of countries from both regions, the contributions illustrate how encounters increasingly transcend fixed territorial categories at local, national and regional levels. While large-scale political and economic considerations tend to dominate in Asia-Africa related literature—for instance, in China-Africa, BRICS and South-South discourses—the current volume seeks to foster dialogue between these broader levels of analyses and more localized social practices and experiences, including the role of civil society, cultural production and migration. With an emphasis on the “trans” aspects of inter-regional exchange, the volume contributes to a better understanding of new forms of space-making between these two increasingly important regions.




Africa’s Quest for Modernity


Book Description

This monograph addresses the complexity of China-Africa and Japan-Africa relations from a comparative perspective. The volume is divided into five sections. Section I focuses on the divergent perspectives that are reflected in the discourse on China-Africa relations. Section II discusses Japan’s economic modernization and its potential lessons for Africa. Section III compares the foreign policies of Japan and China in Africa and analyzes their supposed rivalries on the continent. Section IV explores the relationship between Southeast Asia and China and its relevance to Africa-China relations. Section V provides an in-depth case study of Ethiopia-China relations over the last century. The book fills a major gap in the existing literature on the triad of Africa, China, and Japan. Under the guidance of the disciplines of African studies, international relations, political sociology, and international political economy, this volume elucidates and examines the complexities of the foreign policies of the two Asian powers toward Africa as well as their economic, political, and cultural underpinnings.




Asia-Afria- Multifaceted Engagement in the Contemporary World


Book Description

This book provides an insight into the complex entanglements between African countries and India, China, and South Korea from multidisciplinary perspectives connecting approaches from cultural, anthropological, literary, and music studies and art history. The three parts present a regional focus, namely Africa-India, Africa-South Korea, and Africa-China while the single contributions speak to each other and offer complementary insights. At the same time, the chapters also link across the regional realms as they deal with similar topics, such as travelling music genres. In part I, for Pombo material culture is the starting point to investigate the connections between the islands of the Indian Ocean and India by questioning the construction of memory. It highlights various aspects of the multilayered history of connections between Africa, the islands, and India. Part II gathers contributions that are complimentary to each other and therefore contribute to the understanding of the complex entanglements in area studies. Part III (Africa-South Korea) explores the impact of African-American arts and artists on South Korea's popular culture as well as the changing perception of artists of African descent in visual popular culture. It shows the impact of Korean content in South Africa. Ute Fendler holds the chair of Romance and Comparative Literary and Cultural Studies at the University of Bayreuth. She is the deputy spokesperson of the Cluster of Excellence "Africa Multiple. Her research interests cover literature and film cultures of the Caribbean, West Africa, the Indian Ocean, and South America. Yongkyu Chang is a professor at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in South Korea and teaches in the Division of African Studies and Graduate School of International Area Studies. He earned his Ph.D. in Anthropology at KwaZulu-Natal University in South Africa and researched various social and cultural issues across Africa. He has expertise in African belief systems and currently working on a project exploring spirit possession in Zanzibar.




Visualising China in Southern Africa


Book Description

China and Africa have long shared a history of allegiance and contact points through global political forces from the time of colonialism and the Cold War. With China’s rise as the new superpower, its presence in Africa has expanded, leading to significant economic, geopolitical and cultural shifts. While issues such as trade, aid and development have received much attention, Chinese and African encounters through the lens of the visual arts and material culture is a neglected field. Visualising China in Southern Africa: Biography, Circulation, Transgression is a ground-breaking volume that addresses this deficit through engaging with the work of contemporary African and Chinese artists while analysing broader material production that prefigures the current relationship. The essays are wide-ranging in their analysis of ceramics, photography, painting, etching, sculpture, film, performance, postcards, stamps, installations, political posters, cartoons and architecture. Visualising China in Southern Africa confines its focus to southern Africa, yet even within this region, the context is complex. Ethnicity and nationalism, the lingering influence of Cold War allegiances and colonial configurations all continue to play a role. The various visual cultures discussed in this volume emphasise the commonality of these categories, but also point towards other shared histories that transcend the nation-state category. The collection includes scholarly chapters, photo essays, interviews, and artists’ personal accounts, organised around four themes: material flows, orientations and transgressions, spatial imaginaries, and biographies. The artists, photographers, filmmakers, curators and collectors in this volume include: Stary Mwaba, Hua Jiming, Anawana Haloba, Gerald Machona, Nobukho Nqaba, Marcus Neustetter, Brett Murray, Diane Victor, William Kentridge, Kristin NG-Yang, Kok Nam, Mark Lewis, the Chinese Camera Club of South Africa, Wu Jing, Henion Han and Shengkai Wu.




East and South


Book Description

What is "Europe" in academic discourse? While Europe tends to be used as shorthand, often interchangeable with the "West", neither the "West" nor "Europe" are homogeneous spaces. Though postcolonial studies have long been debunking Eurocentrism in its multiple guises, there is still work to do in fully comprehending how its imaginations and discursive legacies conceive the figure of Europe, as not all who live on European soil are understood as equally "European". This volume explores this immediate need to rethink the axis of postcolonial cultural productions, to disarticulate Eurocentrism, to recognise Europe as a more diverse, plural and fluid space, to draw forward cultural exchanges and dialogues within the Global South. Through analyses of literary texts from East-Central Europe and beyond, this volume sheds light on alternative literary cartographies — the multiplicity of Europes and being European which exist both as they are viewed from the different geographies of the global South, and within the continent itself. Covering a wide spatial and temporal terrain in postcolonial and European cultural productions, this volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of literature and literary criticism, cultural studies, post-colonial studies, global South studies and European studies.




Africa's Shadow Rise


Book Description

For years economists have spoken of ‘Africa rising’, and despite the global financial crisis, Africa continues to host some of the fastest growing economies in the world. Africa’s Shadow Rise however argues that the continent’s apparent economic ‘rise’ is essentially a mirage, driven by developments elsewhere - most particularly the expansion in China's economy. While many African countries have experienced high rates of growth, much of this growth may prove to be unsustainable, and has contributed to environmental destruction and worsening inequality across the continent. Similarly, new economic relationships have produced new forms of dependency, as African nations increasingly find themselves tied to the fortunes of China and other emerging powers. Drawing on in-depth fieldwork in southern Africa, Africa’s Shadow Rise reveals how the shifting balance of global power is transforming Africa’s economy and politics, and what this means for the future of development efforts in the region.




The Political Economy of China’s Belt and Road Initiative in East Africa


Book Description

This book examines the implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in East Africa. The BRI is considered China's central geopolitical and geo-economic project in the era of President Xi Jinping. Through this work, the author aims to contribute to filling some research gaps, such as the lack of depth in studies of individual BRI projects and the underconsideration of processing narratives in participating countries. The guiding question is the extent to which the BRI is a political or hegemonic project of the CCP-directed state-civil society complex in East Africa. To answer these questions, databases of international organizations and policy documents are analyzed. In addition, the author conducts a qualitative content analysis of newspaper articles from local media houses in the countries of Ethiopia, Kenya, and Tanzania to examine three infrastructure projects. The work illustrates that the BRI contributes to increasing connectivity in East Africa. At the same time, the compression of economic relations and the implementation of infrastructure projects in East Africa lead to numerous consequences and contour a hegemonic project.




India Migration Report 2023


Book Description

The India Migration Report 2023: Student Migration is one of the first books that attempts to comprehensively explore the various nuances of Indian international student migration factoring in multiple factors that influence the migration journey of Indian students. It also looks into other migration stories including internal and international returnees, various impacts of remittances, and migration in the context of the pandemic. This volume: Inspect the factors driving the student migration from India, accounting for both the historical and current happenings influencing these factors. Following the pandemic, the book highlights the challenges faced by Indian international students in accessing health care and other related services which goes on to push them into vulnerable situations Outlines the reasoning behind Indian students' decision to emigrate and how families play an important role in influencing key migration decisions made by students and the different patterns of student migration observed in India Examines the employment challenges experienced, particularly following the COVID-19 pandemic, by the highly skilled Indian migrants and Indian international students Describes the role that recruitment and consultancy agencies play in international student mobility (ISM) and examines the intricate relationship between migrant agencies and migration facilitation Investigates the psychological, economic and social challenges faced by Indian international students during their migration journey both during and after the completion of their course abroad Provides a critical overview of the conditions of both internal and international returnees to different parts of India Studies the impact of remittances on migrant households including their consumption patterns and human capital investment Analyses interstate migration networks through the prism of gender and critically assesses how gender migration patterns have altered throughout time Scholars, students, researchers, academicians, policymakers or anyone with an interest in migration, migration politics, economics, social psychology, migration policies, development studies, sociology, social anthropology and gender studies will find this book on Indian student migration extremely informative. The book is a comprehensive collection of various studies that look into the multiple aspects of student migration but also extend to other pertinent issues of Indian migration that are extremely relevant at this given point in time.




Afrasian Transformations


Book Description

Afrasian Transformations explores a dynamic nexus of transregional interactions that is reshaping political relations, economic flows and increasingly mobile lifeworlds on the one hand, and academic practices in African and Asian Studies as well as transregional research on the other.




Paradigm Shifts in Chinese Studies


Book Description

This book is a study of the change and continuity in paradigms in China studies, both inside and outside of China. In the last few years, the United States and China appeared to be moving in the direction of “de-coupling,” indicating that the engagement policy with China in the last four decade is ending. The “modernization theory” that is the theoretical foundation of the engagement policy has proved to be insufficient. This situation calls for a reexamination of the field of China studies. Historically, scholarly paradigms shifts often went hand in hand with drastic social change. As we have entered an era of great uncertainty, it is constructive to reflect on the paradigms in China studies in the past and explore the possibility of new paradigms in the future. How are the shifts of major theories, methods and paradigms in China studies in the west related to social change? How did some of China’s paradigms impact on the country’s social change and developments? This book will appeal to a wide readership, including scholars and graduate students, upper division undergraduate students of China studies, Asian studies.