News
De:link // Re:link final conference
The conference marking the end of our first phase of funding took place at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin on 23 and 24 May 2024. Titled ‘Local Roads, Global Belts’, the event covered the wide spectrum of research on the BRI that has been produced since 2021. The programme consisted of panels concieved by the partners in
World Cafe and ZOiS Forum
On 28 November 2023, a World Café followed by a ZOiS Forum took place at the Centre for East European and International Studies (ZOiS). At the World Café entitled „New Insights about the Belt and Road from (Eur)Asia to (East)Africa: Strategies, Narratives and Reactions“ (organized by PI Julia Langbein) scholars from all four research consortium
Recent publication: “New Silk Road Narratives”
It is not only goods, financial capital or technologies that are being traded, negotiated and circulated along the China-led Belt and Road Initiative but also values, emotions and cultural practices. The latter are often decisive when imagining and establishing a transregional infrastructure of the scale of the BRI. This book explores connections and disconnections along
INTERNATIONAL SILK ROADS SYMPOSIUM
As China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) forges ahead, it continues to receive exponential media, societal and academic attention globally. Greece’s Piraeus harbor, Kenya’s SGR railway and Sri Lanka’s Hambantota port, amongst others, are often cited in many BRI discussions for diverse reasons. Reactions emanating from these discussions vary, just like the effects of the BRI projects themselves; from very successful outcomes of some; to ambivalent or detrimental effects of others; to comparative debates where BRI projects are compared to other initiatives; to reflections on debt distress amongst participant states. While engaging with notions of “de-linking” and “re-linking” for reflection and exploration of BRI effects and experiences – whereby “link” also stands for drawing from “local insights and new knowledges” – this symposium aims at analyzing current and future BRI perspectives across Asia, Africa and Europe.
Exploring Colonial Continuities, Human Rights and China in Tanzania
When Julius Nyerere, Tanzania’s first president, spoke about Tanzania’s relations with China many decades ago, he already made one thing clear: Tanzania should see for itself what China intends to do with Tanzania. It should not let others tell it what to do. A lot has changed since then, but one thing has remained the same: Europe still tends to dictate to post-colonial countries what they should think about China, especially when it comes to the issue of human rights. But on what basis? Do human rights really apply to everyone in Europe or only to a select and lucky few? And how does this affect relations between Europe and African countries? This literary essay attempts to provide some answers by examining colonial continuities, the presence of China in Tanzania and the universality of human rights, especially LGBTIQ rights.
Transregional Dynamics of Cosmopolitan Memory Spaces Across Maritime Silk Roads
At the invitation of Gropius Bau and SAVVY Contemporary under the auspices of Berliner Festspiele, various artists, authors, musicians, filmmakers and thinkers participated in the international exhibition titled ‘Indigo Waves and Other Stories: Re-Navigating the Afrasian Sea and Notions of Diaspora’ that ran from 6th April until 13th August 2023. I was privileged to have been invited to showcase a section of my De:Link // Re:Link BRI research at Humboldt University of Berlin