About the Book
This book explores the media and cultural exchanges between Africa and China in the twenty-first century against the backdrop of the rise of Africa and China in global geopolitics. It situates these cultural encounters in historical and contemporary contexts and through the critical lens of the Global South. It identifies a rising Global South consciousness, despite lingering historical entanglements and emotional ambivalences that continue to characterise Africa-China relations.
Bringing together scholars from various disciplines and from different parts of the world, this book examines a wide range of cultural expressions such as arts, literature, translated works, traditional and digital media artefacts and services, and film festivals. It also interrogates emerging cultural interactions, experiences and practices engendered by the increasingly digitalised information and communication technology infrastructure underpinning Africa-China connections and links. In doing so, the book contributes to a more nuanced understanding of Africa-China relations today and the concept of the Global South.
Table of Contents:
Introduction: Entangled Histories and Ambivalent Feelings in Africa-China Relations Part I. Africa-China Representations in Artistic and Literary Works 1. Malema Mirrors Mao, Fanon Faces Dao: Reimagining Afro-Asian Solidarities Through the Activation of Revolutionary Portraits 2. An Eastern Gaze: Reconsidering ‘African Art’ from a Chinese Perspective 3. Yvonne Owuor’s The Dragonfly Sea: Against the Instrumentalisation of History in the Sino-African Indian Ocean World 4. Reading Yvonne Owuor’s Political and Ecocritical Projects through Sino-African Relations in The Dragonfly Sea 5. Translating the Global South: Chinese Culture ‘Going Global’ through English-translated Chinese Literature Part II. Africa-China Encounters, Experiences and Interactions in Technologically Mediated Environments 6. Digital Economy Industries, the Logic of Globalisation, and the Engineered and Entangled Cultures of Production and Consumption Behind the China-Africa Nexus 7. Global South Ally and Leader: China’s Image Building in Africa through the Development Assistance Projects of Pay-TV Company StarTimes 8. #ChinaMustExplain: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Stigmatisation of Africans in China 9. Rethinking China’s Engagement with the Global South through ‘Racial’ Lenses 10. Assembling the Queer Global South: Asian Pacific Queer Film Festival Alliance and Regional Collaboration 11. The Queer Global South: Transnational Video Activism Between China and Africa
About the Author :
Hongwei Bao is Associate Professor in Media Studies at the University of Nottingham, UK. He is the author of Queer China: Lesbian and Gay Literature and Visual Culture under Postsocialism, Queer Media in China, and Contemporary Chinese Queer Performance, also published by Routledge. He coedits Routledge Handbook of Chinese Gender and Sexuality.
Daniel H. Mutibwa is currently Associate Professor of Creative Industries and Digital Culture in the Department of Cultural, Media and Visual Studies, University of Nottingham, UK. Daniel researches and teaches in the areas of media and communication, creative industries, digital economy, the arts and heritagee, and cultural transformations in place-based communities.
Review :
"A long-awaited volume exploring the complex and multifaceted encounters between China and Africa in contemporary culture and media. Its timely and compelling case studies across literature, art history, film, and new media challenge binary thinking, offering insightful interpretations of how the entanglement of Global South consciousness and geopolitics shapes cultural imagination and practices." - Xiaoning Lu, SOAS University of London
"The timely collection Entanglements and Ambivalences: Africa and China Encounters in Media and Culture, superbly introduced by Hongwei Bao and Daniel H. Mutibwa, makes a major contribution to multidisciplinary scholarship on the evolving nature of Africa-China relations from the vantage point of the Humanities. Drawing on extensive research in the fields of media and cultural studies, this rich volume troubles ossified readings of Africa-China interactions and instead offers nuanced registers to trace the complex contours of historical and present entanglements. A must-read for scholars and students interested in understanding the complexities and dynamics of Africa-China engagements, this book illuminates the cultural, social, and political dimensions that shape and are shaped by these encounters. Bao and Mutibwa’s insightful curation encourages readers to deepen their perspectives on this critical global relationship." - Tina Steiner, Stellenbosch University
"Entanglements and Ambivalences: Africa and China Encounters in Media and Culture explores the fast-changing, complex relationship between Africa and China through a lens of art, literature, media and festivals from two geopolitical areas on the rise, Africa and China. With its unique emphasis on unofficial, mundane, rather hidden or unnoticed, popular, queer and grassroots’ narratives, its diverse contributions offer perspectives of interlaced Asian-African histories, presents and futures which undermine simplifying narratives of ‘grand solidarity’, but also neo- or anticolonialism and also underline the intricacies of racialization and capitalism. The contributions need to be lauded for not sticking to dichotomies or jumping to hastened conclusions of a narrative of relation still unfolding. Rather, like seismographs, fiction, media and arts analyzed detect the shifting ground in more subtle ways, showing affinities, potentials, but also gaps and silences. The book hence offers a view on complex presents, which project themselves into new historiographies and genealogies, but also gives an outlook on possible futures." - Clarissa Vierke, University of Bayreuth
" Entanglements and Ambivalences: Africa and China Encounters in Media and Culture is a timely and thought-provoking edited volume. Transcending the often-narrow focus on economic and diplomatic ties, this book offers rich insights into how China and Africa are increasingly interconnected through and are represented in media, cultural exchange, and artistic production. The volume is a welcome addition to the burgeoning field of China-Africa studies, and will foster a deeper understanding of this ‘entangled’ and ‘ambivalent’ relationship." - Liang Xu, Peking University
"This volume’s focus on the relationship between African and China in media and cultural productions is urgently needed, especially given the increasingly controversial role of China on today’s global stage. This book is of great importance, offering the reader a plethora of diverse, exciting case studies." - Jamie J. Zhao, City University of Hong Kong
