CA AC Call for Papers Final January2016

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Convergences and Divergences: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Media and Communications in Africa-‐China Engagement

The 4th Chinese in Africa/Africans in China Conference, Nairobi, 18-‐20 August 2016

The fourth conference convened by the Chinese in Africa/Africans in China (CA/AC) Research Network will take place in Nairobi, Kenya on 18-‐20 August 2016. The event will be co-‐hosted with the Aga Khan University at their School of Media and Communications (Westlands) campus. Other event partners include: Fahamu, China House, the Sino Africa Centre for Excellence (SACE) Foundation, The Nation Media Group, African Media Initiative, the Wits China-‐Africa Reporting Project, the African Studies Center at Michigan State University, and the School of International Studies/Academy of Overseas Chinese Studies at Jinan University. The aim of the CA/AC conference is to bring together a small group of scholars who have been engaged in empirical research and whose work focuses on the people-‐related aspects of China-‐Africa engagements from across the world. This year the conference also has a special focus on media, communications, and related issues of representation, perception and images. This is meant to be a working conference for participants to share knowledge, receive constructive comments to further develop their research, and connect with one another in an intimate setting. In addition to the working conference, the Aga Khan University will be hosting a symposium on “Getting Heard” in order to bring together scholars and media practitioners, and a public seminar on the two days preceding the conference. The list of panels is now ready and can be found below. The panels fall into several broader thematic areas: A. Race, Perception, Culture, and Representation B. Media Practices and Practitioners in China-‐Africa Engagement C. Politics, Public Policy, and Diplomacy In addition to the panels listed below, early career scholars are encouraged to present their work in progress; these papers will receive careful reading and feedback from a panel of senior scholars. We hope to contribute to capacity building and informal mentoring for those who desire the guidance of senior scholars in the field. Depending on the number of abstracts received we will organize 1-‐2 panels especially for this purpose. These papers can focus on any aspect of Africa-‐China relations and need not be focused specifically on media & communications. We invite scholars to submit paper abstracts that will fit into these panels; please ensure that you specify the panel that best accommodates your paper topic. Paper proposals (abstracts) are due no later than 15 February 2016. They should be submitted on the form circulated along with this call and sent to [email protected]. The conference organizing committee will select the papers for the conference in consultation with the panel chairs. Each panel can accommodate at least three but no more than four papers; if a panel does not receive at least three papers, we reserve the right to cancel said panel. Feel free to contact the chairs queries about specific panels. For all other questions, please contact the conference organizers at [email protected]. Notifications will be sent out by Friday 4 March. Those whose abstracts have been accepted will be expected to submit full draft papers to the panel chairs by 1 August 2016.

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Practical information: There is a registration fee for conference attendance this year. The registration fee is US$120; PhD students and those who can demonstrate need will pay a reduced fee of US$60. Attendance of those not participating directly in the conference will limited and determined on a case-‐by-‐case basis; anyone wishing to attend the conference and not presenting a paper will be asked to pay the full registration fee. Registration fees will go toward covering costs of tea/coffee, lunches, and materials. We regret that we cannot cover accommodation or travel costs. Information about accommodation as well as evening and side activities will be forthcoming. Participants will be responsible for their own travel arrangements, hotel bookings, airport transfers and visas. Further details regarding payment, accommodation, transfers, and side events will be sent to those whose papers are accepted in the coming months. The local host will issue letters of invitation to all participants for the purpose of applying for a visa; please check with your Kenyan embassy to find out with you will require a visa for travel from your country and apply for these in a timely fashion. Important dates: Paper Abstracts Due: 15 February 2016 Notification of Participation: 4 March 2016 Draft Papers Due: 1 August 2016 Symposium & Public Seminar: 17-‐18 August 2016 Conference dates: 18-‐20 August 2016

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Convergences and Divergences: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Media and Communications in Africa-‐China Engagement

The 4th Chinese in Africa/Africans in China Conference, Nairobi, 18-‐20 August 2016

Panels A. Race, Perceptions, Culture, and Representation A.1 Race and Racialization in China-‐Africa Relations Tu HYUNH, Jinan University, Email: [email protected] This panel aims to contribute to the growing interest in the question of race in China-‐Africa relations. We want to problematize the phenomenon of racial (re)formation. Specifically, it is concerned with “Western” racial (including orientalist) views of Africans and Chinese, alongside these populations’ assimilation of foreign ideas and reconstructions of racial theories. Papers should shed light on the concept of race and spread of racism in the modern world system, as well as on the recent tensions and relations between Africa/Africans, China/Chinese, and “the West/Westerners.” Papers juxtaposing the place of East Asians and Africans in 18th or 19th-‐century European constructions of race; analyzing the reproduction of racial constructs (categories) in the decolonization and post-‐colonial eras; focusing on the interplay of nationalism and race; and delineating the connections between race, gender, and other modes of differentiation are welcome. A.2. Chinese Enterprises in Africa: Perceptions and Practices LUO Arting, Sino-‐Africa Centre of Excellence (SACE) Foundation, Email: [email protected] This panel will explore how Chinese enterprises in Africa perceive the business environments they are facing. How do they perceive the relevant importance of policies from China, international organizations, and local governments? What do they think about doing business in Africa as compared to China, particularly in terms of competition, labor management, and community relations? What attitudes do they take towards Chinese, local and international media? Do these perceptions influence the way Chinese enterprises doing business in Africa? And how do they manifest these perceptions in their business practices? A.3. Partnership Perceptions and Representations of China: Confucius Institutes Kenneth KING, University of Edinburgh, Email: [email protected] Both the Confucius Institutes and the higher education partnerships between 20 Chinese and 20 African universities (20+20) are concerned with changing the representation of China in Africa. The CIs through the teaching of Chinese language, culture and history, and the 20+20 through inter-‐disciplinary partnerships present China as an all-‐weather friend, are engaged in education of mutual benefit to students in China and Africa. Visits to China are a crucial dimension of both schemes. Equally the shared leadership of CIs, through both Chinese and African directors, and the avoidance of the 20+20 being perceived as ‘aid’ schemes present China as an equal partner with Africa. Papers in this panel will examine CIs in Africa vis-‐à-‐vis their perceptions of partners and their roles in representing China. A.4 Branding China in Africa and Africa in China: Exploring representation and notions of suzhi and “face” Yoon Jung PARK, CA/AC Research Network, Email: [email protected] In terms of China’s “going out”, China’s firms, Chinese products, and increasingly China’s people come to represent China and the China brand. In Africa, as the China brand comes under fire, criticisms are about quality: shoddy Chinese road or building construction that can’t withstand more than one rainy season and cheap,

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inferior, or fake fong kong products suitable only for the poorest of the poor. Amongst Chinese migrants in Africa, divisions take shape around home region, generation or wave of migration, but more often around these class/quality differences. Members of the educated and professional classes of Chinese migrants speak with anger, frustration, and embarrassment about the low class/low quality of some Chinese migrants – migrants who bring down the China brand. Similar discourses can also be found amongst African migrants in China. This panel will focus discussion on questions of representation, suzhi, and “face” in Africa-‐China engagements. A.5. Migration, culture, identity and scholarship: the role of the ‘arts’ in Sino-‐African engagements Roberto Castillo, University of Hong Kong, Email: [email protected] From film and photography to painting, sculpture, music and martial arts, current Sino-‐African cultural exchanges involve a diverse range of practices. Without a doubt, contemporary intersections between traders, transmigrants, artists, scholars and media practitioners have altered (and possibly allowed for reconfigurations of) cultural panoramas in both China and Africa. As the exchanges between people in these regions are on the rise, this panel calls for the examination of both the historical and contemporary reconfigurations (i.e. adaptations, innovations, reinterpretations) of certain cultural practices and the possibilities that they offer. Currently, a number of scholars are working on issues related to the ‘cultural aspects’ of Sino-‐African engagements. By focusing on these aspects, this panel would draw attention to the complex intersectionality of migration, culture, diaspora, identity and representation. Indeed, one of the main questions the panel would examine is: How are contemporary Sino-‐African cultural exchanges impacting on traditional cultural, national, and ethno-‐nationally based identities? The panel welcomes multidisciplinary discussion of the above-‐mentioned issues through the lenses of cultural exchanges, cross-‐cultural perception/representation, cultural diplomacy, and soft power, but is not restricted to these perspectives/themes. B. Media Practitioners in China-‐Africa Engagement B.1. Practitioners from an Academic Perspective Cobus VAN STADEN, University of the Witwatersrand, Email: [email protected] This panel will trace the frontiers of the contemporary Asian media presence in Africa. Papers are invited that go beyond the traditional focus on state-‐owned media in order to uncover new models of reporting, including citizen journalists, small-‐scale producers and stringers who work for multiple outlets at once. This panel will therefore break down the conceptual barriers between: (1) Chinese media and other Asian media in Africa; (2) Content for local and transnational consumption; (3) State-‐owned and private media: and (4) Conventional and internet media. B.2. Chinese Media in West Africa Emeka UMEJEI, University of the Witwatersrand, Email: [email protected] The scope of the panel shall encompass all aspects of Chinese media engagement in West Africa including its trajectory and evolution. The following thematic units shall underpin the scope of the panel: • Chinese media in Nigeria, Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone and The Gambia; practitioners perspectives, perception, representation and narrative • Newspapers coverage of China in Nigeria, Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone and The Gambia • Star Times in West Africa; Star Times-‐Nigeria Television Authority (NTA) Partnership, Star Times partnership with National televisions in West Africa • Influence of China’s media investment in West Africa-‐Nigeria, Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone and The Gambia • Representation of China in the West African (Nigeria, Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone and The Gambia) social media: West African Social media coverage of China-‐Africa relations

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B.3. Social Media’s Place in China-‐Africa Knowledge Production Lina BENABDALLAH, University of Florida, Email: [email protected] Winslow ROBERTSON, Cowries & Rice, Email: [email protected] Social media platforms such as WeChat, Twitter, and Weibo have become popular drivers of the China-‐Africa discussion. Over time, they have promoted the development of pluralist communities of researchers and practitioners, with diverse backgrounds, specialties, locations, and methodologies. Additionally, these social media platforms serve producers and distributors of (mostly) open access knowledge, which does not require institutional affiliations and financial supports. In this panel, we do not seek to prove that the social media is important. We take that as a given and ask in what ways is social media itself changing the Africa-‐China discourse? What are the opportunities and challenges of this channel of communication? With these lines of inquiry in mind, we invite papers that probe the practical relevance of the representation of China-‐Africa through social media platforms to the policy realm. What is the relevance of what’s being shared, argued, and discussed on WeChat, Twitter, Weibo, etc. to policymaking and official discourse on China-‐Africa? Do these platforms simply allow for the sharing and distribution of existing knowledge or the creation of new Africa-‐China ideas and relations? C. Politics, Public Policy, and Diplomacy C.1. Carrying Away Small Stones: Interrogating the Role of Mediated Exchanges between Africa-‐China in Strengthening China’s Cultural Political Economy Folu OGUNDIMO, Michigan State University, Email: [email protected] Media plays an influential role in shaping how we think about and enact culture in our daily lives. It does so by generating narrated representations of people, places, events, and things on local, national, and international platforms. In the contemporary relational context between Africa and China, media is used to strengthen politico-‐economic ties between the two regions, and in so doing, espouses values and ideas of each that are culturally embedded with multiple webs of meaning. Using cultural political economy as a framework, this panel examines how mediated exchanges between Africa and China, particularly in the context of globalization, have and continue to play a significant role in facilitating access to African markets and people. The panel engages these exchanges, from an African Studies perspective, using cross-‐cultural perceptions of the “other”, cultural appropriation, and cultural ideals of beauty. C.2. South Africa and the New Geopolitics of Information: The Case of China Hermann WASSERMAN, University of Cape Town, Email: [email protected] After South Africa’s inclusion in the BRICS group of nations, China’s footprint in the South African mediascape has become stronger and more diverse. This can be seen in China’s direct investment in South African media houses, in the production and distribution of Chinese content across the country, and the involvement of Chinese telecommunication companies in infrastructure development. Despite the growth in South Africa-‐China media relations, existing knowledge on the matter is still scant. This panel proposes to investigate how the South African media facilitates or resists the country’s growing relationship with China within the broader ambit of the country’s membership of the BRICS group of nations. By bringing the attention to the role of the media, papers in this panel seek to widen the thematic scope of scholarly works on Sino-‐African relations, which have been largely limited to economic relations. Although international research in this area is growing both in relation to the question of soft power as exercised via the media, and in relation to China’s increased presence in Africa, academic studies on South Africa have been limited to exploratory work. This panel showcases studies that are based on empirical evidence and works that advance our theoretical understanding of the new geopolitics of information within the context of South Africa.

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C.3. Transnational Migration and Foreign Policy ZHANG Zhenjiang, Jinan University, Email: [email protected] The steadily increasing numbers of transnational migrants are playing important roles in world economy and politics. This panel aims to collect papers on transnational migrants’ impacts on the foreign policy of either countries of residence or countries of origin. Paper proposals on Chinese in Africa or Africans in China and either sending or host country’s foreign policy, bilateral governmental relations, economies, or people-‐to-‐people relations, as well as general China-‐African relations will be considered for this panel. C.4. China-‐Africa Public Diplomacy ZHANG Yanqiu, Communication University of China, Email: [email protected] In recent years the practice of China-‐Africa public diplomacy has attracted increasing attention. In this panel, discussions on media and public diplomacy between China and Africa, reflections on Chinese public diplomacy concepts, and comparative studies on public diplomacy related China-‐Africa relations are welcome.

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CA AC Call for Papers Final January2016