Jana Hönke is a Professor of Sociology of Africa at the University of Bayreuth. She currently directs the ERC INFRAGLOB project Africa’s Infrastructure Globalities, and is Associate Editor of Security Dialogue. Her current work examines how political geographies transform through South-South relations by studying the contested security arrangements related to multinational companies and transport infrastructures in contexts of fragility.
Email: Jana.Hoenke@uni-bayreuth.de
Raoul Bunskoek is a senior researcher at the University of Bayreuth as well as a senior research fellow and coordinator of the Clingendael China Centre. Within the INFRAGLOB project, he researches how Chinese political-economic practices in African countries (re)shape global governance and what this means for International Relations (IR) theorizations.
Email: Raoul.Bunskoek@uni-bayreuth.de
Jan Sändig is a postdoctoral researcher in Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Bayreuth. Within INFRAGLOB he examines how local communities and transnational activists contest Chinese mining projects in Guinea and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
Email: Jan.Saendig@uni-bayreuth.de
Mia Yifan Yang is a PhD candidate promoted by Chair of Sociology for Africa at Bayreuth University and a research associate within the INFRAGLOB project, where she is responsible for the China-Africa component.
Email: Yifan.Yang@uni-bayreuth.de
John Heathershaw is a Professor at the University of Exeter and an advisor of the project, especially in regard to research ethics.
Kadara Swaleh is in the advanced stages of his Doctoral studies at Freie Universität, Berlin, within the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology. His dissertation explores the impact of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects in Kenya, focusing on the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) from Mombasa to Nairobi and its effects on Mombasa’s common folk, particularly those involved in the informal economy. His research interests also encompass Islam in East Africa, Security Studies including Countering Violent Extremism (CVE), and Swahili Studies. He has contributed to academic journals like Social Dynamics and The Annual Review of Islam in Africa and co-authored a book chapter with Kai Kresse in “In This Fragile World: Swahili Poetry of Commitment by Ustadh Mahmoud Mau”, edited by Clarissa Vierke and Annachiaria Raia. He recently contributed a book chapter to a volume titled “Challenging Post-Slavery Hierarchies in East Africa.” Kadara served as a lecturer in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Pwani University. From 2017 to 2022, he assumed a governmental role, overseeing the relations between Kenya’s Jubilee Party and the Communist Party of China (CPC), and took part in numerous training sessions and programs in the People’s Republic of China.
Yuqin (Jamila) has joined the INFRAGLOB project as a student assistant. She is currently pursuing her Master’s degree in Asian and African Studies at Shanghai International Studies University and is an exchange student in African Studies at the University of Bayreuth. With her undergraduate background in Swahili Language and Literature, Yuqin’s primary focus is on East Africa. Her current research interests center around the humanistic aspects of China-Africa relations, especially in sustainable development areas such as education, gender equality, and the preservation of indigenous languages and cultural heritage. A key part of her role in INFRAGLOB is to analyze and conduct research on materials in Mandarin Chinese.
Galina works as a student assistant for the INFRAGLOB project. She holds a bachelor’s degree in international politics from Nankai University. Currently, she is a master’s student in Development Studies with a focus on Advanced Politics & Sociology at the University of Bayreuth. Galina is particularly interested in development issues, especially Chinese development projects in Africa and Chinese transnational professionals in Africa. She is also interested in sustainable development, having completed a bachelor thesis on the localization of the SDGs and working with the UN SDSN.
Matthieu works as a student assistant for the INFRAGLOB project. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from the University of Lüneburg and from the University of Paris 12. Currently, he is a master’s student in Development Studies with a focus on Advanced Geography at the University of Bayreuth and the University of Bordeaux Montaigne. Matthieu is particularly interested in development disparities, especially among the territories encompassed by France.
Within INFRAGLOB, he supports the Francophone research context on mining projects and contestations in Guinea and the DRC. He further coordinates the website and social media activities of INFRAGLOB.
Claude Kabemba is the Executive Director of the Southern Africa Resource Watch (SARW). He holds a PhD in International Relations from the University of Witwatersrand and possesses over 26 years of experience in research, policy, and advocacy on democratic governance, ESG, and development in Africa. Claude Kabemba has authored numerous books and articles on topics such as democratization, the African state, election politics, social policies, and natural resource governance, drawing from his extensive fieldwork in Southern and Central Africa. As an associated researcher of the Infraglob project, he focuses specifically on gaining insights into how Chinese mining companies respond to contentious actions in the DRC.
Laura Krehbiel recently obtained a master’s degree from the Universities of Porto, Bayreuth and Bordeaux-Montaigne in the Erasmus Mundus Programme European Interdisciplinary Master African Studies (EIMAS). In her master´s thesis, she researched how Ugandan youth climate activists use social media for their activism. Expanding on this, she is now researching how climate activists in Uganda navigate political constraints to their activism, with a focus on contestations against the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP).
Eric Cezne is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Utrecht University, and a visiting research fellow in INFRAGLOB. He has completed his PhD research (2016-2020, University of Groningen) in collaboration with the project, approaching the signification and articulation of South–South relations in expanding mining frontiers – seen through the coal-driven investment of Brazilian multinational Vale S.A. in Mozambique.
Email: e.m.cezne@uu.nl
Before moving to Bern, Mykola completed his PhD at the University of Amsterdam and worked as a postdoctoral research in Data Science at the Amsterdam School of Communication Research.
Email: mykola.makhortykh@ikmb.unibe.ch
Ana Rodrigues-Vasse worked as a research assistant for the INFRAGLOB Project. She studied Agronomy at the University of Brasília, in Brazil, and since then has been interested in patterns of agrarian change in the global south. Ana holds an MSc in Rural Extension from the University of Viçosa, also in Brazil, where she researched transformations of livelihoods in rural resettlements in Tete, Mozambique, as a consequence of Brazilian mining investments in the region. At the moment, besides her collaboration with the INFRAGLOB team, she is also a prospective PhD candidate in Spatial Sciences at the University of Groningen.
Jiaxiu worked as a research assistant for the INFRAGLOB project. Before coming to Germany, she majored in German studies & Economics at Shanghai International Studies University, China. Now she studies international economics and development at the University of Bayreuth. She is interested in the economic system and public finance in Africa.
Katja worked as a student assistant for the INFRAGLOB project. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in International Economics and Development from the University of Bayreuth. Currently, she is a master’s student in Development Studies with a focus on Advanced International Economy at the University of Bayreuth. Katja is particularly interested in environmental and energy politics, especially renewable energies and the structures in the electricity sectors of African countries.
Within INFRAGLOB, she supported the Francophone research context on mining projects and contestations in Guinea and the DRC. She further coordinated the website and social media activities of INFRAGLOB.
Zhiying worked as a student assistant for the INFRAGLOB project. She is currently a master student major in Social and Cultural Anthropology, with a focus on Chinese-Namibian exchange. Her current research interest is on the entanglement and impingement of Chinese merchants in Namibian local context and how it leads to partial transformation of ownership of traditional material and fragmentary cultural appropriation. In the INFRAGLOB project, she supported the Chinese- English research context.
Research master student and an intern with INFRAGLOB.