African-Asian interactions contribute to the emergence of a decentred, multi-polar world in which different actors need to redefine themselves and their relations to each other.
Afrasian Transformations explores these changes to map out several arenas where these transformations have already produced startling results: development politics, South-South cooperation, cultural memory, mobile lifeworlds and transcultural connectivity. The contributions in this volume neither celebrate these shifting dynamics as felicitous proof of a new age of South-South solidarity, nor do they debunk them as yet another instance of burgeoning geopolitical hegemony. Instead, they seek to come to terms with the ambivalences, contradictions and potential benefits entailed in these transformations – that are also altering our understanding of (trans)area in an increasingly globalized world.
Contributors include: Seifudein Adem, Nafeesah Allen, Jan Beek, Tom De Bruyn, Casper Hendrik Claassen, Astrid Erll, Hanna Getachew Amare, John Njenga Karugia, Guive Khan-Mohammad, Vinay Lal, Pavan Kumar Malreddy, Jamie Monson, Diderot Nguepjouo, Satwinder S. Rehal, Ute Röschenthaler, Alexandra Samokhvalova, Darryl C. Thomas, and Sophia Thubauville.
Ruth Achenbach serves as coordinator of the Interdisciplinary Centre for East Asian Studies, researcher, and lecturer at Goethe University Frankfurt. Her research interests include migration and decision making theory, student migration in Asia, the role of skills in Asian migration regimes, IR theory, Japanese management practices and development cooperation.
Jan Beek currently leads the research project ‘Police-translations’ at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. His research focuses on policing, fraud, transregional connections, and collaborative research.
John Njenga Karugia is a lecturer at the Institute of Political Science at Goethe University Frankfurt where he teaches Transregional Politics. His research focuses on memory politics and cosmopolitan ethics across Africa, Asia, the Middle East and the Afrasian Sea transregion.
Rirhandu Mageza-Barthel holds the Chair for International Gender Politics at the University of Kassel. Her research focuses on transnational and postcolonial perspectives in international politics, and political dynamics in African-Chinese relations.
Frank Schulze-Engler is Professor of New Anglophone Literatures and Cultures at Goethe University Frankfurt. He is a former co-leader of the Africa's Asian Options (AFRASO) project at Goethe University and has published widely on African, Asian and indigenous literatures, postcolonial theory, globalisation, and transcultural studies.
Acknowledgements
List of Illustrations
Notes on Contributors
Afrasian Transformations: An Introduction
Ruth Achenbach, Jan Beek, John Njenga Karugia, Rirhandu Mageza-Barthel, and Frank Schulze-Engler
Part 1: Translocalizing Memory
1 Futures in the Past of Africa-China Engagement Jamie Monson
2 Indo-Mozambicans in Maputo: Oral Narratives on Identity and Migration from 1947–1992 Nafeesah Allen
3 Afrasian Sea Memories: Between Competitive and Multidirectional Remembering John Njenga Karugia and Astrid Erll
Part 2: Transregionalizing Development Politics
4 Agricultural Transformation in Africa: Assessing the Role of Southeast Asia, China, and the United States Seifudein Adem and Darryl C. Thomas
5 The Cultural Politics and Political Sociology of Indian “Land-Grabbing” in Ethiopia Vinay Lal
6 Dealing with Chinese Investors in Cameroon’s Mines: African Agency and Participation Diderot Nguepjouo
7 Higher Education and Nation Branding: Malaysia’s Africa-Specific Student Recruitment Strategies Alexandra Samokhvalova
Part 3: Transfiguring South-South Cooperation
8 The Promise of Equal Partnerships in South-South Cooperation? Evidence from Brazil, India, and the PR China in Mozambique Tom De Bruyn
9 From Poverty to Prosperity: Rural Development in South Africa with Reference to South Korea’s New Village Movement Casper Hendrik Claassen
10 Migration of Indian Educators to Ethiopia: Between Solidarity and Global Capitalism Sophia Thubauville and Hanna Getachew Amare
Part 4: Shifting Gears in Mobile Lifeworlds and Transcultural Connectivity
11 Cybercrime between Africa and India: Doing Area and Maintaining National Borders Online Jan Beek
12 Television Soap Operas as the New Frontier in African and Asian (Afrasian) Encounters: The Case of Filipino teleseryes in Africa Satwinder S. Rehal
13 Original and Fake, Fake Originals, or Multiple Degrees of Quality? Chinese Manufactured Consumer Goods on Cameroonian Markets Ute Röschenthaler
14 ‘Counterfeiting’ in the African-Asian Trade: ‘Fake,’ ‘Original,’ and Everything In-between Guive Khan-Mohammad
15 The Late Style of Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o Pavan Kumar Malreddy
Index
Academics and students in the fields of Global Studies, African Studies, Asian Studies and other Area Studies. Anyone in political science, sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, literary studies and economics interested in African-Asian relations.