AFRASO Ringvorlesung: Neue Chancen durch neue Interaktionen?

23. April 2013
Hörsaal II, Hörsaalgebäude Mertonstr. 17-21, Campus Bockenheim

Evolving cartographies of power: Geo-economic and geo-institutional forces in northeast Asia-Africa relations in past and present

The current shift in economic gravity towards Asia has major ramifications for the African continent. Indeed, growing trade and investment ties between African countries, and the rising powers of north and south Asia have been part of a change in economic trajectory for many countries in Africa in recent years. What underpins this apparent shift, how deep does it go, and with what implications?

Most scholarly analyses of Asia-Africa relations present a macro-narrative of interactions based on broad, current dynamics in the economic and diplomatic spheres. Prof. Scarlett Cornelissen will present a longue durée, meso-perspective, and will reflect on the significance of northeast Asia’s industrial transformations as a factor of change and entanglement.

Exploring the way processes of industrialisation and the governance structures that underpin these have evolved in northeast Asia (i.e. China, Japan and South Korea), she aims to highlight the most pertinent geo-institutional forces that shape the sub-region and design their interactions with Africa today. She does this primarily through company-centred analysis, looking at how northeast Asian companies engage with the continent based on the industrial systems they arise from.

Lecture by Prof. Dr. Scarlett Cornelissen, Stellenbosch University

Panel members: Prof. Dr. Arndt Graf, Prof. Dr. Schulze-Engler, Goethe University

Chaired by Prof. Dr. Uta Ruppert, Goethe University