Chinese Geographical Science - Call for Papers: Global China: International Perspectives on the Belt and Road Initiative
Introduction：
As the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) entering its second decade, it is crucial to provide an updated understanding of China’s expanding global influence. While China’s traditional role as the 'World's factory' is undergoing transformation, it is actively shaping a new global world order that challenges Western political-economic dominance through the BRI. However, there is a dearth of robust geographical research, particularly from the Global South where China's influence is most pronounced.
This special issue seeks to update geographical scholarship on China’s growing global influence through the BRI by inviting geographical research contributions from an international perspective. Rather than aiming to establish a unified or singular understanding of the BRI, we acknowledge and embrace its inherent complexity, incoherence, contradictions, and evolutionary nature. The BRI is a contested process of governance that involves not only state and business elites from China, but also local officials, small businesses, communities, media outlets, NGOs, each driven by distinct and often contradictory personal, political, and economic motivations and objectives. We aim to cover diverse theoretical perspectives and geographical contexts to capture this complexity. Our international-geographical approach offers a valuable means to navigate the opaque realm of BRI politics, moving beyond the stagnant debates surrounding the definition of the BRI and its classification as a geoeconomic or geopolitical endeavor. We want to overcome the limits of high-level geopolitical and geoeconomic narratives on the BRI. By emphasizing grounded empirical research that examines international and local actors affected by or engaged in the BRI, as well as the localized relationships and contextual dynamics, we can gain a deeper understanding of China’s global ambitions and widen the analytical lens, empowering us to better comprehend how China operates within and shape the global order, as well as transcending abstract discussions to analyze the tangible impacts and interactions on the ground.
Research Topics：
In this special issue, we seek qualitative and quantitative empirical research (such as case studies, comparative studies, surveys) exploring China’s international influence and the BRI. Broad geographical coverage is desired, and we particularly welcome contributions from scholars from the Global South. We also aim for comprehensive theoretical coverage, encompassing areas such as geopolitics, governance, migration studies, border studies, urban geography, economic geography, cultural geography, political ecology, and political economy. The special issue topics include, but are not limited to:
- BRI and Chinese borderlands
- Political ecology perspectives on BRI projects
- Environmental governance of the BRI
- Political economy perspectives on BRI projects
- Gendered perspectives on BRI projects
- BRI and regional development
- BRI and international migration
- BRI and urbanization
- BRI and cultural exchange
About Sponsors：
Kevin Lo, Associate Professor, Department of Geography, Hong Kong Baptist University and Acting Director, David C. Lam Institute for East-West Studies, and also the Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Asian Energy Studies, the members of Editoral Board of Chinese Geographical Science. Focusing on developing the human geography perspectives on climate change, Dr. Lo works at the intersection of environmental, energy, political, urban, rural, and development geographies. He has won several major competitive grants from the Research Grants Council (RGC) of Hong Kong, including the Early Career Scheme (ECS) and the General Research Fund (GRF), and has published in many leading journals, including Global Environmental Change, Political Geography, Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, etc.
Mark Wang, Professor, School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Melbourne, and Director, Centre for Contemporary Chinese Studies. Mark is also the president of Chinese Studies Association of Australia, and the associate chief editor of Chinese Geographical Science.
Linda is a Senior Research Fellow at the Urban Institute of the University of Sheffield. Her research revolves around environmental politics, with a focus on urban climate governance, transformations, and justice. Linda currently leads a project funded by the European Research Council, PLURALIZE, which explores just transitions in the context of environmental politics in China. Linda recently acted as contributing author of Chapter 6 of the IPCC Assessment Report 6 and is co-founder of the Urban Working Group of the Earth System Governance network.
Important Dates：
Manuscript submission deadline: August 31, 2024
Estimated publication time: Published online once accepted.
Submission URL: http://egeoscien.neigae.ac.cn (this opens in a new tab)
Please select Belt and Road Initiative as the article type on submission