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Global China in Urban Europe: Understanding the role of Chinese actors, media, cultures, and capital in European urban development

Project description

A closer look at China’s influence in Europe

China’s global influence extends beyond its borders through capital, infrastructure, migration, media, and cultural programs. Yet, studies on ‘global China’ have largely focused on Chinese actors in developing countries, while overlooking their role in the Global North. With this in mind, the ERC-funded CHINA.EU project shifts this perspective by examining Chinese actors and capital in European cities. It explores how Chinese urban, cultural, and digital influences shape urban spaces in Düsseldorf, Paris, and Athens. By using hybrid fieldwork methods, the project investigates how Chinese actors conceptualise European urbanism through their own experiences. This research will provide new insights into China’s evolving global role, moving beyond state-led narratives and redefining our understanding of urban transformations in Europe.

Objective

The concept of global China understands China’s influence as manifested in outward flows of capital, infrastructure, migrants, media, cultural programmes and international and civil society engagement, yet for an area of study that purports to be ‘global’ scholarship in the field of global China has focused almost exclusively on the role of Chinese citizens, Chinese institutions, and carriers of Chinese capital (hereafter, Chinese actors) and Chinese capital in developing countries and the Global South.
To combat this narrow view of global China, China.EU takes an innovative approach to the study of global China that pivots scholarship on global China to the Global North. The project moves beyond a methodologically nationalist and state-led understanding of global China, to instead focus on how global China, as understood through Chinese actors and capital, is (i) urban, (ii) cultural, and (iii) digital – often simultaneously all three.
In doing this, the project will answer four research questions: (1) What concepts are used to understand urbanism and urban development in China? (2) How do Chinese actors see and understand European urban space? What notions do they carry with them from China? (3) How are Chinese actors as (un)willing representatives of global China influencing urban development in Europe? (4) What insights about global China emerge when we analyse global urban China and the role of Chinese actors in European urban spaces?
To answer these questions, Europe.CN uses innovative hybrid fieldwork methods to analyse the heterogenous role of Chinese actors and capital in three European contexts: Dusseldorf & the Ruhr Area, Paris, and Athens. Furthermore, the project hypothesizes that Chinese actors in urban Europe will see, understand, imagine, and conceptualize European urban space through Chinese concepts and the recent history of rapid urban development in China. To understand this, the team will produce a handbook of ‘official’ and ‘unofficial’ ur

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Topic(s)

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Funding Scheme

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Call for proposal

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(opens in new window) ERC-2024-STG

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Host institution

SCHOOL OF ORIENTAL AND AFRICAN STUDIES ROYAL CHARTER
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 1 500 000,00
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THORNHAUGH STREET RUSSEL SQUARE
WC1H OXG London
United Kingdom

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Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
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Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 1 500 000,00

Beneficiaries (2)

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