Author name: Amy Visram

New Phase, New Connections: Our Journey along the BRI Continues​

Since the De:link//Re:link research consortium formed in April 2021, there have been dramatic political changes in (Eur)Asia. Among them the return of the Taliban to power in Afghanistan later that year, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The expansion of the BRICS group of nations added to significant shifts in international relations. These

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Infrastructures of Memory: EU-China Global Geopolitical Competition and its Effects on Africa

Our very own PI Dr John Njenga Karugia (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin) will give the next Silk Road Talk on 22 November from 4.15 to 5.45 p.m. The lecture will take place in the Department of Asian and African Studies at Invalidenstraße 118, Room 410. China and the European Union’s interests and competition across Africa are

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The Digital Silk Roads in Africa: How the Chinese Huawei Group is Rewriting the Future of Technologies in Senegal

We are delighted to anounce that Dr. Ibrahima Niang (Université Cheikh Anta Diop, Dakar/ZMO, Berlin) will give the next Silk Road Talk on 25 October from 4.15 to 5.45 p.m. The lecture will take place in the Department of Asian and African Studies at Invalidenstraße 118, Room 410. The New Silk Roads celebrate their tenth

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Podcast

Podcast: Not just China: Regional Actors and the BRI in Pakistan, Georgia and Hungary

In the ten years since its conception, China’s Belt and Road Initiative has morphed into a trillion dollar global infrastructure enterprise. The attention it has been receiving is frequently mixed with suspicion about China’s presence on the global stage. However, any BRI project involves multiple actors beyond China and interacts with pre-existing infrastructure and conditions.

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Podium Discussion: China Connecting People? A Transregional Inquiry into Infrastructural Dis/connections in Africa and Eurasia

Belts, roads and initiatives – in plural – are being forged through China’s global infrastructural engagement. Countless ports, highways and railways are constructed, reconstructed and rehabilitated for connecting people in Asia with Africa and Europe for seamless trade and economic development. In this transregional roundtable, we bring these aspirations down to earth. We trace emerging

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Dr. Beril Ocaklı

Guest Lecture: Dr. Beril Ocaklı on Re/searching Connections: Geopolitics and Poetics of the BRI Infrastructure in Eurasia

A decade on, China through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) continues to occupy minds and political geographies. Unveiled a decade ago at the Nazarbayev University Campus in Astana, Kazakhstan, the BRI remains an unprecedented undertaking for seamlessly interconnecting people and places in Asia with Africa and Europe through multifarious large-scale infrastructure. Drawing on published

Guest Lecture: Dr. Beril Ocaklı on Re/searching Connections: Geopolitics and Poetics of the BRI Infrastructure in Eurasia Read More »

Workshop: Museums as Cultural Infrastructures. Claiming History and Heritage in Central Eurasia

Museums seem to be everywhere in post Soviet Central Eurasia. From magnificent state buildings to regional, private, and ‘house’ museums, they all attest to an interest in and an urge to document and shape collective, national and public discourses of identity that relate to specific visions of the past. By engaging a variety of material,

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