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DTSTART;TZID=Asia/Hong_Kong:20201105T200000
DTEND;TZID=Asia/Hong_Kong:20201105T210000
DTSTAMP:20260427T034010
CREATED:20211207T064047Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230316T082659Z
UID:6010-1604606400-1604610000@asiar.hku.hk
SUMMARY:China’s Belt and Road Initiative in Nepal: National Imaginaries\, Ethnographic Anxieties\, and Geopolitical Power
DESCRIPTION:BRINFAITH RELIGION AND EMPIRE PUBLIC LECTURE SERIES\nChina’s Belt and Road Initiative in Nepal: National Imaginaries\, Ethnographic Anxieties\, and Geopolitical Power\nABSTRACTThis talk examines China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in Nepal to argue that infrastructure is a symbolic project of national development imaginaries\, a process and practice of state formation\, and a vector for the spatial operations of geopolitical power. Contextualized by a five-year development trajectory and accentuated with agreements from the Second Belt and Road Forum in May 2019\, I show how BRI programs in Nepal reflect a new phase of Sino-Nepali geopolitics which I conceptualize as ‘infrastructural relations.’ While these infrastructural relations between Beijing and Kathmandu are routinely framed at geopolitical scales\, it is also evident that they operate at personal and bodily levels. That is\, attention to BRI activities in Nepal’s borderland regions\, where Tibetan religious and linguistic practices proliferate\, reveals that ethnographic anxieties also motivate China’s international infrastructure development agenda. Highlighting the cultural dimensions often hidden within broader geopolitical discourse on the BRI in Nepal\, I unpack how new configurations of bilateral energy\, transport\, and security collaboration between Nepal and China also index a new model of development with Chinese characteristics in the trans-Himalaya region.\nABOUT THE SPEAKERGalen Murton is Assistant Professor of Geographic Science at James Madison University in Harrisonburg\, Virginia\, USA. Trained in human geography\, international relations\, and comparative religion\, he is broadly interested in the politics of the international development\, and especially how power operates spatially through the material and social forms of infrastructure. In 2018 – 19\, he was a Marie S. Curie Action Fellow at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and completed the project “Road Diplomacy: International Infrastructure and Ethnography of Geopolitics in 21st Century Asia”. He recently published special issues in Political Geography\, Studies in Nepali History and Society (SINHAS)\, and Roadsides and his co-edited volume Highways and Hierarchies: Ethnographies of Mobility from the Himalayas to the Indian Ocean is forthcoming in 2021 from Amsterdam University Press.\n\nORGANIZERThe event is organized by the CRF Project “Infrastructures of Faith: Religious Mobilities on the Belt and Road [BRINFAITH]” (RGC CRF HKU C7052-18G)\, which is hosted by the ASIAR – Asian Religious Connections Research Cluster in HKIHSS.
URL:https://asiar.hku.hk/event/chinas-belt-and-road-initiative-in-nepal-national-imaginaries-ethnographic-anxieties-and-geopolitical-power/
LOCATION:Via Zoom (Registration required)
CATEGORIES:Religion and Empire Public Lecture Series
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://asiar.hku.hk/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Muton-poster1920x1080.jpg
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DTSTART;TZID=Asia/Hong_Kong:20201125T130000
DTEND;TZID=Asia/Hong_Kong:20201125T140000
DTSTAMP:20260427T034010
CREATED:20211207T063637Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230316T082526Z
UID:6002-1606309200-1606312800@asiar.hku.hk
SUMMARY:China’s Islamic Outreach to the Middle East
DESCRIPTION:BRINFAITH RELIGION AND EMPIRE PUBLIC LECTURE SERIES\nChina’s Islamic Outreach to the Middle East\n\nABSTRACTThroughout its existence\, the People’s Republic of China has depended on Chinese Muslims to foster relationships in the Arab world. But Beijing’s strategies for engaging its Muslim population in foreign outreach have changed dramatically over time. This lecture will focus on the city of Yinchuan\, the capital of China’s Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region\, which was built up during the 2010s to be a locus for engagement with the Middle East. By tracing Yinchuan’s ups and downs over the past decade\, this lecture will explain the evolution of China’s diplomacy toward the Middle East and examine the ways in which China continues to rely on Islam\, even at a time when religiosity in China is more contentious than ever before.\nABOUT THE SPEAKERDr. Kyle Haddad-Fonda is a fellow with the Foreign Policy Association and a producer for its Great Decisions documentary series on American public television. He is also a frequent commentator on China’s relations with the Middle East and a lecturer in the History Department of the University of Washington in Seattle. He holds a DPhil in Oriental Studies from the University of Oxford\, where he was a Rhodes Scholar.\n\nORGANIZERThe event is organized by the CRF Project “Infrastructures of Faith: Religious Mobilities on the Belt and Road [BRINFAITH]” (RGC CRF HKU C7052-18G)\, which is hosted by the ASIAR – Asian Religious Connections Research Cluster in HKIHSS.
URL:https://asiar.hku.hk/event/chinas-islamic-outreach-to-the-middle-east/
LOCATION:Via Zoom (Registration required)
CATEGORIES:Religion and Empire Public Lecture Series
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://asiar.hku.hk/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Kyle1920x1080.jpg
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