The IGI Series on Global Responsibilities brings multidisciplinary and global perspectives to major contemporary questions. This year’s spotlight on China highlights its international presence and influence today. Beyond geopolitics and security topics, series speakers will examine various global issues and questions relating to climate, trade, technology, economic development, public health, human rights, and higher education.
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Women & Gender in Global Perspectives Program
Title: Resilience Amidst Repression: The Chinese Feminist Movement in the Era of Escalating Authoritarianism"
Speaker: Lü Pin, PhD student in Political Science, Rutgers University
Date: September 12, 2023
Time: 12:00pm (noon)
Location: 306 Coble Hall and via Zoom
Register via: https://forms.illinois.edu/sec/775272977
Lunch will be provided for in-person attendees with registration.
Lü Pin is a prominent Chinese feminist activist and an emerging scholar specializing in Gender and Politics. Her journey in advocating for women's rights began in the late 1990s. In 2009, she established Feminist Voices, a pioneering and the largest new media platform dedicated to women's issues in China, which was banned in 2018. Since 2012, Lü Pin has been dedicated to empowering young feminists and supporting their activism throughout China. After relocating to the U.S. in 2015, she spearheaded the organizing of the diaspora Chinese feminist community.
Center for African Studies
Title: African Agency and the Future of Africa-China Engagements
Speaker: Dr. Kwame Adovor Tsikudo, Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia
Date: November 1, 2023
Time: !2:00pm (noon)
Location: Room 306 Coble Hall and via Zoom https://go.illinois.edu/BrownBag23-24
Dr. Kwame Adovor Tsikudo is an assistant professor of geography and global studies at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. Kwame’s research examines the political economy of China-Africa engagements and the role of the African state. The main strands of this research entail linkage creation, state capacity and agency, environmental governance, energy justice, and sustainability. Kwame’s recent work used mixed exploratory methods to investigate how the Ghanaian state shaped the developmental outcomes of the Chinese-financed Bui Hydroelectric Dam. His ongoing project explores the power dynamics of development infrastructures in China-Africa relations. Kwame is a research fellow at Afro-Sino for international relations and serves on the African Geographical Review editorial board.
Africa and China have, over the past two decades, forged robust relationships involving cooperating on issues such as COVID-19, mutual developments, and multilateral bloc voting. While African countries welcome the burgeoning engagement for fulfilling vital fiscal and infrastructural deficits, the extent to which African agency shapes the interactions remains an issue. Drawing on research from Ghana’s Bui hydropower dam, this presentation contextualizes African agency by examining how Chinese African (Ghanaian) employees resisted and challenged poor working conditions and unfavorable labor practices and regimes. This analysis foregrounds micro-scale agency as critical in shaping the future of Africa-China engagements by offering alternative narratives. The discussion challenges the state-centric approach to agency and argues that socio-political contexts, including history, law enforcement, and institutional effectiveness, are prerequisites for successfully exercising agency in Africa-China relationships. The study reinforces the centrality of autonomous, sagacious, and resourceful institutions in facilitating mutual benefits of Africa-China relations.
Center for East Asian & Pacific Studies
(Working Title): Who is Us: The Globalization of Innovation and Challenges to Assessing Technological Dependence
Speaker: Jeffrey Ding, George Washington University
Date: March 1, 2024
Location: via Zoom (link to come)
Jeffrey Ding is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at George Washington University. Previously, he served as a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation. His research agenda covers emerging technologies and international security, the political economy of innovation, and China's scientific and technological capabilities. His book manuscript investigates how past technological revolutions influenced the rise and fall of great powers, with implications for U.S.-China competition in emerging technologies like AI. Dr. Ding’s research has been published or is forthcoming in European Journal of International Security, Foreign Affairs, International Studies Quarterly, Review of International Political Economy, and Security Studies, and his work has been cited in The Washington Post, The Financial Times, and other outlets. He received his PhD in 2021 from the University of Oxford, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar, and earned his B.A. in 2016 at the University of Iowa.