This week on It’s Hot in Here, hosts Amanda Kaminsky, Neal McKenna, and Brendan Wu discuss China-Africa relations with Dr. Omolade Adunbi, an Assistant Professor in the University of Michigan’s Department of Afroamerican and African Studies. Amanda, Neal and Brendan are all students in Dr. Adunbi’s new winter course, When China Comes to Town: Environment and the Politics of Development (AAS 458). The course covers Chinese foreign development policy in Africa and across the Global South.
Our show features a conversation about the social and environmental implications of Chinese infrastructural investment across the African continent. We begin by discussing Dr. Adunbi’s research on wealth distribution in the Niger Delta, which he investigates extensively in his new book Oil Wealth and Insurgency in Nigeria. Our conversation focuses on urban reconstruction in Lagos and Chinese investment in a new project called the Lekki Free Trade Zone. Next, we examine the cultural dynamics of South Africa’s longstanding Chinese communities, drawing from a lecture given by Dr. Yoon Jung Park in New York in 2012 (watch the full lecture here). Finally, we explore the economic and environmental implications of China’s rising middle class through the eyes of Amanda, Neal, and Brendan, each of whom spent several years living in China. For more information on China-Africa relations, including podcasts and the latest news stories, check out The China Africa Project.
The show features music from artists who have embraced global cultural exchange, including Beijing-based Mongolian rock band Hanggai, Nigerian singer Stephen Uwechue who has become a pop sensation in China, and dub/reggae group Laohei from the southwestern Chinese province of Yunnan. Continue reading China in Africa: Challenges for Sustainable Development