Global China in/from Africa: Transforming Governance in BRI Frontier Zones

This talk, based on the book "Africa’s Global Infrastructures: South–South Transformations in Practice," examines Chinese projects within the context of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in Africa. It asks how Chinese companies govern and manage relations with African host societies, and argues that their practices both replicate and transform established local and transnational governing. By analyzing selected project sites as 'frontier zones,' where diverse stakeholders interact, the talk argues for tracing the diverse evolution of governance practices in the context of ‘ global China’, beyond counter-models. Drawing from the ERC Infraglob project and contributions from global authors, it discusses implications for our understanding of transnational governance in an increasingly polycentric world order. 

Jana Hönke is professor and chair for Sociology in Africa at the University of Bayreuth. She currently directs the ERC INFRAGLOB project Africa’s Infrastructure Globalities,the DFG project Crafting the space to govern: Non-state practices of legitimation in Africa, and is part of the Postcolonial Hierarchies in Peace and Conflict research network and the research network Conflicts.Meanings.Transitions. Her research is concerned with how governance practices are co-produced and contested, how they travel, and to what effect. Her current work examines how political geographies transform through South-South relations by studying the contested social and security arrangements around multinational companies and large-scale infrastructure projects in Africa. While doing multi-sited fieldwork including in Europe, China and Brazil, much of her work takes place in Sub-Saharan Africa with research conducted in South Africa, Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia, Tanzania, Mozambique and Guinea.

Prof. Hönke is also the founder of the UBT Peace and Conflict research network, Deputy Spokesperson of the Bavarian Research Alliance Conflict, Peace and Security) and member of the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy Hamburg (IFSH).

She is the author of ‘Transnational Business and Security Governance. Hybrid Practices in a Postcolonial World’ (2013), ‘The Global Making of Policing. Postcolonial Perspectives’ (with Mueller, 2016), and 'Africa's Global Infrastructures. South-South Transformation in Practice' (with Cezne, Yang, 2023). Her articles have appeared in leading journals such as International Political Sociology, Security Dialogue, African Affairs, Governance, World Development, Global Sociology and Environment and Planning D. She is also a co-editor of the Spaces of Peace, Security and Development book series at Bristol University Press and serves on the boards of International Political Sociology, European Journal of International Relations and Security Dialogue.

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