Theme: 5. Knowledge-making: Institutions, Objects, Cultural Ownership

Studying Africa-China Engagements in the Context of African Sinology, Afro-Asian Solidarity and Global South Narratives, and Transregionalism: Gaps, Trends, and New Directions in Knowledge Production

Roundtable Convenor(s)

• IO

  Isaac Odoom

  Carleton University, Canada

Roundtable Participant(s)

• IO

  Isaac Odoom

  Carleton University, Canada
• CB

  Cyrille Aymard Bekono

  University of Yaounde I, Cameroon
• HZ

  Hang Zhou

  Université Laval, Canada
• 

  Caitlin Barker

  Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs, United States
• JS

  Jodie Yuzhou Sun

  Fudan University, China (People's Republic)

Roundtable Abstract:

Even in the context of shrinking research funding and multiple global wars shifting international focus to Ukraine, Sudan, Congo, Gaza, and now Lebanon, there seems to be continued interest and engagement in the China-Africa/Africa-China field. That said, scholars within this research community have long grappled with the inherent imbalance to studying one country’s ties to the African continent. Several scholars have engaged, more broadly, with Africa-Asia research initiatives, transregionalism, and Global South Studies as potential alternatives to both Area studies’ silo-ization and the dominance of “China-Africa studies”. We also recognize that “China-Africa Studies” continues to be dominated by non-African researchers and research organizations. 

The participants in this Roundtable seek to come together to reflect on knowledge production, teaching, and publishing in “China-Africa/Africa-China Studies” in light of the inherent imbalances, power dynamics, and funding disparities. We seek to foreground the politics of knowledge production, interrogate the significance and implications of positionality, and the agency of knowledge producers in Africa-China encounters. We also hope to identify current trends, existing gaps, and possible new directions in Afro-Sino studies.

Roundtable supported by: Chinese in Africa/Africans in China Research Network