Events

This workshop is jointly organised by the Asian Institute at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, University of Toronto; and the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore.

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is an ambitious infrastructure and development project aimed at promoting trade between China and other countries and regions around the world. Since its initial announcement in 2013, the BRI has rapidly evolved into a strategy for China’s internal and external development, a ‘brand umbrella’ under which a vast array of China’s geopolitical projects—ranging from trade and investment to humanitarian initiatives—have been implemented. Although the BRI lacks a formal legal mandate and binding rules, it is being rolled out through a variety of policy instruments, including bilateral agreements, investment incentives, development projects, and trade and infrastructure programmes.

While the macroeconomic impact of China’s growing presence in the BRI nations is the subject of increasing scholarly attention, the effects of Belt and Road projects on the conditions of migration and mobility remain under-researched. We know little about how investments and policies delivered under the banner of the BRI are altering the diversity of migrant groups, the sociocultural and economic drivers of migration, and the legal and administrative governance of migration. Equally sparse is research along the Belt and Road on encounters and dynamics between migrants and local residents, and the impact on sociocultural exchange and knowledge circulation. This workshop aims to address these gaps by examining topics such as:

• Economic and socio-political forces that produce particular migration regimes and conditions of (im)mobility;
• The social, economic, political, and cultural implications of emerging flows of migration and mobilities in both sending and receiving contexts;
• The experiences of mobility between China and the BRI countries among various groups of migrants; and
• The effects of the BRI’s sociocultural exchange and knowledge circulation on migration and mobilities.

The workshop invites empirically grounded papers that analyse migration and mobilities set in motion by elements of the Belt and Road, including:

• cross-border commerce and trade
• work opportunities across different sectors
• entrepreneurship and deskilling
• education and vocational training
• marriage and family reunion
• lifestyle migration
• precarity and displacement

This two-day interdisciplinary workshop aims to bring together international, regional, and local scholars to reflect on how the conditions of mobility have changed along the Belt and Road by addressing a range of salient issues on the emerging geographies of migration, such as migration regimes and conditions of (im)mobility, various implications of emerging flows of migration, and the dynamics of sociocultural exchange and knowledge circulation.

It is part of a partnership project (Belt and Road in Global Perspective or BRGP) funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) involving Professor Rachel Silvey and Professor Edward Schatz (Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, University of Toronto), Professor Neil Collins (Nazarbayev University), and Professor Brenda Yeoh (National University Singapore) to investigate the rapidly developing and widely varying changes and downstream effects that are occurring in the wake of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

REGISTRATION

Registration is closed, and instructions on participating in this hybrid workshop have been sent out to registered attendees. Please write to valerie.yeo@nus.edu.sg if you would like to attend the event.

WORKSHOP CONVENORS

Prof Brenda S.A. Yeoh, FBA | Asia Research Institute & Department of Geography, National University of Singapore
Prof Rachel Silvey | Asian Institute & Department of Geography and Planning, University of Toronto
Prof Edward Schatz | Department of Political Science & Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, University of Toronto
Assoc Prof Kong Chong Ho | Department of Sociology, National University of Singapore & Yale-NUS College
Dr Yi’En Cheng | NUS College, National University of Singapore
Dr Kris Hyesoo Lee | Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore