Asia in Africa: Ethics and Intimate Interconnections Beyond “the West”
Extensive literature has discussed the ways in which political ideologies, power relations, and intercontinental social connections are manifested through philanthropy and humanitarian interventions in Africa. An overwhelming majority of this literature, however, focuses on the cases between Western powers and their relations with various African countries, many of which are their past colonies.
What is less studied, on the other hand, is the role of non-Western and non-European actors in contemporary humanitarian, and philanthropic interventions in and across Africa.
How do religious and non-religious actors from Asia engage with social and moral issues in African societies? How does the condition of being non-Western and non-European connect and separate these two continents (Asia and Africa)? How do the investors and local communities establish rapport with one another? What are the conditions and principles through which they establish trust, duty, grace, hospitality as well as mistrust, betrayal, or indolence? How do they form a common ground in such intangible intersubjective human connections? How do race and ethnicity operate in shaping interpersonal identity politics and building up trusty and ethical relations?
“Asia in Africa” is a new spin-off research cluster that emerged from Takhayyul Project. It is built on a collaborative program Dr. Sertaç Sehlikoglu from the IGP and Dr. Yu Qiu from the Institute of Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences at Zhejiang University have been forming in the last two years. By studying and comparing a series of philanthropic and charitable projects initiated by actors from Asian countries (Turkey and China) in Africa, the project develops the ways in which the cultural, religious, and social values of these two Asian countries have been exchanged with Africa.
The case of Turkey in Africa studies the encounter between Western and Turkish Imperial Dreams through philanthropy at the charitable projects of the Turkish State in Zanzibar, Tanzania. Specifically, it will focus on economies of philanthropy and imagination, the ways in which the Ottoman past, race, and Islam are imagined in Turkey and in Zanzibar as a way to cultivate trust as an intimate interconnectivity in this economic relationship.
The case of China in Africa explores how the issue of ethnicity, ethics, and cultural values are played out in China’s religious and social philanthropy in East Africa (Tanzania in particular). Specifically, it explores the ways in which the moral economy of gifting and caring operates and how cultural values, ideologies, and Chinese Buddhist teachings are translated and practiced in socially engaged ways, and how they are received by local communities and societies. In so doing, we aim to critically understand the complexity and contradictions in contemporary China’s engagement with Africa.
The existing projects and the funds they received under the “Asia in Africa: Ethics and Intimate Interconnections Beyond “the West”” research theme are listed below:
· Project Title: Economics, Ethics, And Intimacy in Asian-African Philanthropy
Funding Name: Innovative Talent Foreign Expert Project Fellowship Award
Funder: Ministry of Education, China
Funding Amount: ¥ 60,000
Awarded to: Dr. Yu Qiu (Zhejiang University) and Dr. Sertaç Sehlikoglu (UCL)
Project Title: Methodologies Beyond the West: Post-Ethnographic Explorations in Intercontinental Intimacies
Funding Name: European Research Council Starting Grant, 2019
Funder: Horizon2020
Funding Amount: £ 4,000
Awarded to: Dr. Sertaç Sehlikoglu (UCL) and Dr Yu Qiu (Zhejiang Uni)
For more information, contact Dr. Sertaç Sehlikoglu: s.sehlikoglu@ucl.ac.uk