Yale Africa-China Symposium in Maputo Highlights Cultural Dynamics, Innovative Research Methods
On March 14-15, 2024, the Council on African Studies at the Yale MacMillan Center for International & Area Studies convened the “Yale Africa-China Symposium: Cultural Dimensions” at Eduardo Mondlane University in Maputo, Mozambique.
While past Yale Africa-China Conferences have focused on the continent’s economic and political ties with China, the 2024 Yale Africa-China Symposium focused on the cultural dimensions of Sino-African relations.
More than thirty scholars traveled from five continents to present their papers in sessions that included “Literary Imaginaries and Afro-Asia Worldmaking,” “Media Ecologies, Race, and Gender in China-Africa Discourse,” and “Art, Music, and Visual Affects.”
“With the conference, it was important to transcend the impasse of the dominant Africa-China conversation, with its overdetermined and predictable political economy valence,” said co-organizing Yale faculty member Cajetan Iheka, Professor of English, Chair of the Council on African Studies, and Head of the Yale Africa Initiative. “Configuring our convening in cultural terms allowed for new orientations and novel paradigms, and to foreground urgent voices at the margin of the Africa-China discourse.”
Many participants noted that it was a historic, agenda-setting conference. “I go to many Africa-China conferences, and this was one of the most generative,” said Mingwei Huang, Assistant Professor of Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies at Dartmouth College. “It was really refreshing to come together with the cultural/humanistic fringe to think different ideas.”
“The symposium provided a platform to reassess the relationship between Africa and China from a cultural perspective beyond just economic exploration,” said Olakunle Folami, professor and social scientist at Adekunle Ajasin University, Nigeria. “The symposium allowed the Southern hemisphere to explore and define their unique differences and abilities to move forward in unity, cooperation, and mutual benefit.”
“It was refreshing that panelists in their presentations looked at particularities that were not about China’s grand scheme in Africa,” said Johannesburg-based artist and filmmaker Michael MacGarry. “The focus on culture diverges from other Africa China conferences [and] has led to so many modes of knowledge production.”
The location of this year’s conference was also significant. Holding the symposium in Portuguese-speaking Mozambique allowed the Council on African Studies to deepen Yale’s engagement in Africa and to develop relationships with a part of the continent where Yale has had minimal past engagement.
“Maputo was a good choice, as Lusophone African countries receive comparatively less attention from scholars on Africa-China,” remarked Rundong Ning, a post-doctoral fellow at the Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences. “This was my first time ever to be in a Lusophone African country, and my stay there left me [with] a vivid impression of Mozambique and evoked my interests in learning more about Lusophone Africa.”
Iheka emphasized that Mozambique is also crucial for recalibrating Africa-China relations, as the region has been a site of contact between Africans and Chinese people for centuries. “The deep temporality and complex dynamics of Chinese presence in a place such as Mozambique challenge prevailing narratives that the conference wanted to unsettle as it provided a forum for new questions, innovative approaches and methods, and fresh voices,” said Iheka.
“I am grateful to the MacMillan Center’s leadership for their support and want to thank Professor Ben Machava and the Council on African Studies administrative team for their excellent work in realizing the conference in Maputo.”