Isaac Odoom
African Politics, International Development, Africa-China relations, South-South Cooperation, Chinese foreign policy in the Global South, Critical International Relations.
| Degrees: | BA (Hons) (University of Ghana, Legon) MA (Brock University) PhD (University of Alberta) |
| Email: | isaac.odoom@carleton.ca |
| Office: | D684 Loeb Building |
Assistant Professor
Isaac Odoom is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Carleton University, where he specializes in International Relations and the Politics of Development in the Global South, with a regional focus on Africa (and China). Dr. Odoom’s research interests include African Politics and Governance, Africa-China relations, South-South cooperation, and the political economy of development. His work centres African agency in shaping external partnerships and development relations, with particular attention to Chinese engagement in infrastructure, energy, and digital sectors.
His current research project, “China’s Digital Silk Road and Geopolitics in Ghana’s Digital Frontier,” investigates the movement of Chinese people, capital, and technology in Ghana’s digital sector. It explores how Chinese involvement in digital infrastructure, governance systems, and private enterprise intersect with U.S. and EU strategic interests, and how Ghanaian actors are navigating these competing influences. Beyond his regional and development focus, Dr. Odoom is also interested in Critical IR Scholarship and Decolonizing Knowledge with particular focus on decolonization in higher education, and academic dependency in knowledge production. He also has an ongoing project on Canada’s economic and development cooperation across Africa. His scholarship has been published in Third World Quarterly, Journal of Asian and African Studies, African Review of Economics and Finance, and several edited volumes.
He is a Non-Resident Fellow at the Centre for Asian Studies at the University of Ghana, and formerly a Visiting Researcher at the Institute of West Asian and African Studies in Beijing. Before joining Carleton in 2022, he taught at the University of Alberta, Grant MacEwan University, Concordia University of Edmonton, and Lancaster University (Accra Campus). He serves on the executive board of the Chinese in Africa/Africans in China Research Network and on the board of the Canadian Association of African Studies.
Selected Publications
Isaac Odoom (2023) “Chinese Miners, Community Resistance and Collaboration in Ghana” in Folashadé Soulé (ed.) Shaping the Future of Africa-China Engagement. CORA: Collective for the Renewal of Africa, REPORT: pp 147-174 October 2023.
Odoom, Isaac (2021) “Resistance as Agency in Ghana-China Relations” In Lloyd Amoah (eds.) 60 Years of Ghana-China Relations: Friendship, Failures and Futures. (Centre for Asian Studies/University of Ghana Press: Accra).
Odoom, Isaac with Nathan Andrews (2021). “Outside the Orthodoxy? The Crisis of IR and the Challenge of Teaching Monocultures” in Teaching International Relations in a Time of Disruption (eds.) Heather A. Smith and David Hornsby (Palgrave Publishing: NY).
Odoom, Isaac (2019) “Ghanaian Agency in Economic Relations in the 21st Century” in
Richard Aidoo (ed.), The Politics of Economic Reform in Ghana (Routledge: NY).
Odoom, Isaac (2018) “South-South Cooperation, SDGs, and Africa’s Development: A Study of China’s Development Intervention in Ghana” in Kobena T. Hanson, Korbla P. Puplampu, Timothy M. Shaw (eds.) From Millennium Development Goals to Sustainable Development Goals: Rethinking African Development (New York: Routledge).
Odoom, Isaac (2017) “Dam In, Cocoa Out; Pipes In, Oil Out: China’s Engagement in Ghana’s Energy Sector” Journal of Asian and African Studies Vol. 52, Issue 5, pp. 598-620 (Article first published online: October 26, 2015).
Odoom, Isaac (2016) (with Nathan Andrews), “What/Who Is Still Missing in International Relations Scholarship? Situating Africa as an Agent in IR Theorizing” Third World Quarterly Vol 38 (1) 42-60.