China Studies in Africa

In recent years, and as a result of growing Africa-China relations, a small but increasing number of African academic institutions have begun to offer training and conduct research in China Studies to meet new demands for local expertise on China. This paper looks at African scholarship on China through the lens of positionality. It asserts that this emerging field is strongly marked by the dynamic human mobility and shifting boundaries of disciplines and geographies of today’s interconnected globalized world. While the diversity in backgrounds and perspectives among African China scholars is enriching, the knowledge on China they produce should be embedded in and speak to local contexts. This is important for China Studies in Africa to be able to meet local expectations of strengthening African agency in relations with China. Africa’s growing relations with China over the past two decades have boosted demands for local expertise on China. A small but growing number of African academic institutions have become engaged in the production and dissemination of knowledge on China and Africa–China relations in particular. Admittedly, in terms of their scale and the attention they receive, these initiatives are overshadowed by some of the other China-related developments in the African academic landscape, such as the tens of thousands of Africans who are pursuing academic training in China or who study Mandarin Chinese through Confucius Institutes across the continent. Nonetheless, the development of African interdisciplinary academic expertise on China opens up a significant “new frontier in the academic world” (Iwata 2014, 106). As Ross Anthony (2018), who was the Director of the Centre for Chinese Studies at Stellenbosch University (2014–18), asserted, this can be an important catalyst to enable African countries and African people to make more informed choices in their growing interactions with China. This contribution looks at the field of China Studies in Africa through the lens of positionality. It situates this emerging field and its practitioners in a vivid landscape of personal, local, regional and interregional expectations, interests and perspectives. Considering these various dynamics, how can African scholarship on China generate knowledge that is embedded in and speaks to its unique local context?