The Orienting Work of “Culture” and Africa-China as Method
Abstract
Abstract This essay problematizes the place of “culture” in Africa-China studies whereby culture is often sidelined as the devalued supplement to political-economic data. Instead, cultural narratives and processes are inseparable from how knowledge and Africa-China relationality are made. We consider how multi-directional reflexivity about the production of a knowledge object (“Africa-China/China-Africa”) intervenes in both outdated forms of Cold War-inflected area studies and emergent hawkish nationalist scholarship. This essay considers Africa-China as method, an approach based in transregional theorizing and relational analysis that attends to the politics of knowledge production and resists instrumentalization of scholarly findings by imperialist or ethnonationalist agendas.
Fields of Study & Subjects
China's Global Influence and Migration
International Development and Aid
Global Maritime and Colonial Histories
Publication details
- Journal / source
- African Studies Review
- Publisher
- Cambridge University Press (CUP)
- Volume
- 69
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 299–322
- Publication date
- 8 January 2026
- Language
- EN