Since the 1st of October 2019, the INFRAGLOB project has a new home. We are now based at the University of Bayreuth, Germany, where we join the newly launched Chair for Sociology of Africa. We are also happy to contribute to Bayreuth’s renowned Cluster of Excellence in Africa Studies, titled “Africa Multiple: Reconfiguring African Studies”.
In October, INFRAGLOB also welcomed Dr. Raoul Bunskoek, who joined the team as a research associate after spending 9 years in Taiwan, where he completed a PhD in Political Science and International Relations (IR) with a focus on post-Western IR in general and Chinese IR in specific. Raoul will work on how practices by Chinese and Brazilian actors in Africa, and in respectively Tanzania and Mozambique more specifically, potentially transform security and human rights regulations for transnational companies and social safeguards in financial lending.
The project also looks forward to welcoming Yifan (Mia) Yang, who is just fresh out of a Research Master in African Studies at Leiden University working on how Chinese contractors navigate an ‘unfamiliar’ environment in Senegal. Mia plans to start working on the project in January 2020 as a doctoral researcher and will work on how Chinese economic projects manage relations with society and host communities on the ground in East-Africa. This will allow us to draw comparative insights with the work Eric Cezne has been doing along similar lines on Brazilian large-scale investment in Mozambique.
In light of INFRAGLOB’s recent move, the team has convened in week 43 (21-25 October) in Bayreuth to plan future proceedings of the project. We discussed future publications, events, and collaborations. Keep an eye on this website for future updates.
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