Since the launch of the Belt and Road Initiative in 2013, the export of China’s model of infrastructure-based development has received significant attention. What do we now know about how this model adapts to local contexts? With the current emphasis on ‘small and beautiful’ BRI projects, how is this model changing?

We’re excited to welcome experts Agnieszka Joniak-Lüthi, University of Fribourg, Miriam Driessen, University of Oxford, Elisa Oreglia & Oyuna Baldakova from King’s College London for a discussion on China’s model of infrastructure-based development chaired by Thomas White, King's College London.

This is an in-person event. Registration is required.

Speakers

Agnieszka Joniak-Lüthi is Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Fribourg. She graduated in China Studies at Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan, Poland and completed her PhD in Social Anthropology at the University of Bern, Switzerland. She has held research positions and taught Anthropology, China Studies and Central Asian Studies at her alma mater, and at the universities of Bern, St Gallen, Zurich and Fribourg in Switzerland, LMU Munich in Germany and Xinjiang University in China. She has also been a visiting scholar at the University of Washington, Oslo University and the University of Cambridge.

Elisa Oreglia is a Reader in Global Digital Cultures in the Department of Digital Humanities, King's College London. She has researched digital lives and policies in China and Southeast Asia for the past 15 years, and is currently leading a project to explore the Digital Silk Road and the expansion of Chinese tech in neighboring countries, https://www.digisilk.eu.

Miriam Driessen is a lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of Oxford. Her research explores Chinese-led development in Ethiopia, examining issues such as labour, migration, infrastructure, and law. She is the author of Tales of Hope, Tastes of Bitterness: Chinese Road Builders in Ethiopia.

Oyuna Baldakova is a Lead Researcher for Kazakhstan on the ERC-funded DIGISILK project in the Digital Humanities Department. Her research focuses on various aspects of the Digital Silk Road and its diverse actors in Kazakhstan, including telecom infrastructure development and the role of Huawei, as well as domestic electronics production and its connections to Chinese suppliers. She is also a PhD Candidate at the Free University of Berlin, where her dissertation examines the implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative infrastructure and industrial projects in Kazakhstan.

Thomas White is lecturer in China and Sustainable Development at the Lau China Institute, King's College London. He was previously a Research Associate at the Mongolia and Inner Asia Studies Unit in the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge. After completing his PhD in Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge, he worked as a Lecturer at this university, and then as a Senior Researcher at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. He holds a BA from the University of Oxford, and an MPhil from the University of Cambridge. Thomas studied Mandarin at SOAS, and has lived and worked for several years in China, where he also learned Mongolian.