Past Event

This workshop critically assesses the global politics of China’s ambitious new grand strategy, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). As the world’s economic centre of gravity progressively moves eastwards, China is extending its trading routes and infrastructure capacity westwards. The term Silk Road (in German Seidenstraße) was first used by the German geographer, Ferdinand von Richthofen, in 1877. Doyle refers to ‘interimperiality,’ the ways in which empires rework networks, ideas, sites, and spaces – which she termed “sedimented infrastructures,” that were, in turn, central to other prior imperial systems. Should we be reading the material components of a world order as being in the process of transformation through the BRI? How can we investigate the role of material infrastructure in sustaining different forms of world order? As Beijing downplays competitive geopolitics and talks instead of common development, win–win cooperation and communities of shared destiny, a guiding question for this workshop is whether these developments will significantly change global politics, and possibly world order.

Workshop Organisers:

• Elizabeth Cobbett (University of East Anglia): Visiting scholar Bachelor of Global and International Studies (BGInS) program at Carleton University January – April 2019
• Ray Silvius (University of Winnipeg)

 Program (Download as a PDF)