PROJECTS
Changing Global Geographies of Power and Development: Contemporary Indian — East African Relations
Director: Dr. Emma Mawdsley, Department of Geography and Newnham College, CambridgeThis project emerged from a joint project first formulated by the Society for South Asian Studies and the British Institute in Eastern Africa. The project has been supported by a grant-in-aid from BASIS, supplemented by funds from Cambridge.
The project will contribute significantly to what is presently a rather limited knowledge base, by exploring contemporary developments and emerging trends in relations between India, Kenya and Tanzania. The historical context of colonial and postcolonial relations provide a critical basis within which the study is located, and an essential foundation to understanding the more recent flows and interactions which have followed India’s increasingly confident emergence as a global political and economic actor. Western and African governments, foreign policy analysts, the private sector, civil society organisations, and ordinary people - as consumers, workers and citizens - are having to accommodate to emerging shifts in global economic and diplomatic centres of gravity. India, as one of the two main ‘Asian Drivers’, is very much at the centre of these challenges and opportunities. However, at present the focus is fixed firmly on China, particularly in terms of Africa, with relatively little research into India’s role and impacts. This research will have relevance to a number of current academic and policy debates within the UK, Africa and India, including:
- Realist, liberal and constructivist international political relations models of challenge and resistance to the rising Asian powers and contemporary South-South relations.
- Competing political economy models of Africa’s positioning in the world economy, and the extent to which various countries are witnessing structural change or not in response to growing South-South interactions.
- Claims that India is a particularly suitable partner for new models of African development given its advantages and experiences in ‘Triple A technologies’, namely appropriate, adaptable and affordable.
- Discussions over changing legal and cultural identities in a globalizing world.
Jobelius (2007) reminds us that the various elements of India’s economic and political foreign policy must be understood as closely connected. Unlike most OECD countries, which make some normative claim (if often dubiously so) to semi-autonomous arenas of, for example, development aid or trade relations, for India they are openly coordinated. The nine small research projects (see table below) that make up the larger project cover a spectrum of issues and disciplinary approaches. By taking a country case study approach (Kenya and Tanzania), we will be in a position to explore connections – to see if we can pull out a sum that is more than its parts. We are also facilitating emerging or deepening networks between scholars approaching these issues from a variety of fields.
Research team
- Dr Emma Mawdsley (PI): Department of Geography, Cambridge University, UK.
Council Member of the Society for South Asian Studies
- Professor Aparajita Biswas and Dr Renu Modi, Centre for African Studies, Mumbai University, India.
- Dr Jennifer Dickinson, Department of Geography, St Andrew’s University, UK.
- Professor Rachel Dwyer, Department of the Languages and Cultures of South Asia, School of Oriental and African Studies, London University.
- Dr Mary Kinyanjui, Institute of Development Studies, Nairobi, Kenya.
- Ms Estelle Levin, Consultant Researcher in Resource Governance.
- Ms Sanusha Naidu: Research Fellow, Centre for Chinese Studies, University of Stellenbosch, South Africa; with Ms Lucy Corkin, also at Stellenbosch
- Professor Kunal Sen, Institute of Development Planning and Management, Manchester University, UK.
- Mrs Sarojini Thakur, Indian Administrative Service; presently with The Commonwealth Secretariat, as of late 2007, returning to senior duties with IAS
- Dr Bhaskar Vira, Department of Geography, Cambridge University, UK
- Dr Elizabeth Watson, Department of Geography, Cambridge University, UK
Council Member of the British Institute in Eastern Africa
- Dr Justin Willis: Director, British Institute in Eastern Africa, Nairobi, Kenya
| Lead researcher | Institution | Project title/subject |
|---|---|---|
| Prof. Aparajita Biswas and Dr Renu Modi | Centre for African Studies, Mumbai University | The socio-economic impacts of the new Indian investments in East Africa |
| Dr Jen Dickinson | Leeds University | Diasporas and legal identities – changing regimes in India and their effects in Kenya and Tanzania |
| Prof. Rachel Dwyer | SOAS | Bollywood’s India: the view from the other side of the Indian Ocean |
| Dr Mary Kinyanjui | IDS, Nairobi, Kenya | The rise of India and its implications for Kenya |
| Ms. Estelle Levin | Consultant, Cambridge | Resource governance – India and Tanzanian interactions over gold: exploring fair trade supply chains |
| Dr Emma Mawdsley and Ms Sarojini Thakur | Cambridge University and IAS (Govt of India) | India’s impacts on development institutions, discourses and practices |
| Ms Sanusha Naidu and Ms Lucy Corkin | Centre for Chinese Studies, Stellenbosch, South Africa | India's investments in East Africa's infrastructure and construction sector |
| Prof. Kunal Sen | Manchester University | The implications of India’s emergence as a global economic power for East Africa: opportunity or challenge? |
| Dr Liz Watson and Dr Bhaskar Vira | Cambridge University | Agricultural technology and new biofuel developments: Kenya – India connections |
The current project is running from July 2007 to December 2008. Outputs will include an edited book, papers in peer-reviewed international journals, policy briefings and a workshop in the UK. Details will be made available through a project web-site, accessible through the Association’s main web-pages.
The next phase of project will build significantly on the 2007-8 phase. As well as allowing follow-up to the original work, something especially important within this fast-moving context, it will expand the geographical focus to elsewhere in Eastern Africa (with the intention of projects in Uganda and Malawi, amongst other sites), something that scholars in this field have argued is essential to understanding the range and complexity of contemporary Indo-East African relations. By the end of the whole project, we hope to have made a substantial contribution to an under-researched but important field. For the 2008-9 period, we are requesting funds for a one-year post doctoral position, to be affiliated with Geography Department, Cambridge, Newnham College, Cambridge and the BIEA.
If anyone is interested in any aspect of the work, please contact Dr Emma Mawdsley (eem10@cam.ac.uk)