Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

Considers how the global economic recession of the late 2000s has coincided with the rise of global China. Examines the origins of Chinese international development, and its effects in receiving communities in Chinese internal frontiers and along China’s Belt and Road Initiative in Southeast Asia, Middle East and Africa. Students with credit for IS 419 under this topic may not take this course for further credit.

COURSE DETAILS:

This course considers how the global economic recession of the late 2000s has coincided with the rise of global China. It starts from the assumption that China’s contemporary international development should not be thought of as only a geographic phenomenon in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Africa, but also as a global field of power. It will focus on three primary forms of Chinese international development and their social and political effects. First it will consider how Chinese state capital is invested in infrastructure projects ranging from roads and dams to “safe city” surveillance systems and internet access. This form of economic state-craft and multinational corporate development both assists ongoing economic growth from localities across China and builds a material basis from which additional relations of power or influence are solidified and, potentially, can be institutionalized. Second it will examine the development of interpersonal relationships with key leaders in positions of power in the receiving locality; or in some cases with diaspora Chinese who are positioned at the grassroots of society. Third it will explore how discursive power is deployed largely through newspapers and television, social media and films and the reshaping of official discourse and industry standards in ways that further cements power relations.

The course prioritizes ethnographic studies that are deeply situated in receiving communities. By focusing on everyday life and the way power is distributed the course strives to examine the relationship between colonialism and capitalism, and how both are constrained by national and international political and economic systems.

COURSE-LEVEL EDUCATIONAL GOALS:

Drawing on case studies at Chinese frontiers in Xinjiang and Hong Kong, before moving on to Southeast Asia, South Asia, and Africa, this course will explore the differences and similarities between Chinese led development and development led by North American and European actors.

• Students will be able to assess how Chinese developments are experienced from the perspective of receiving communities and from the perspectives of state authorities in receiving nations.
• They will consider how geography, legal protections, labour conditions shape these perspectives.
• They will examine how these developments are viewed by Chinese migrant workers, corporate managers, and Chinese state authorities.
• They will develop analytic tools to understand the relationships between colonialism and new forms of capitalism; infrastructure and state power; democratic movements and authoritarian statecraft.
• Together these perspectives and modes of analysis will help students develop nuanced views of contemporary international politics and development.

Grading

Materials

REQUIRED READING:

REQUIRED READING NOTES: