Dr. Howard French, Columbia University
February 27, 2015 (Fri), 3:00 – 5:00 p.m.
UNM Continuing Education Conference Center
Dr. French will give a revealing account of China’s burgeoning presence in Africa. He will show the human face of China’s economic and political presence across the African continent—and in doing so will reveal what is at stake for everyone involved. He will present a broad spectrum of China’s emigrant population, from those singlehandedly reshaping African infrastructure, commerce, and even the environment to those just barely scraping by, still convinced that Africa affords better opportunities than their homeland. And he will relay an equally panoramic array of African responses: a citizens’ backlash in Senegal against a “Trojan horse” Chinese construction project; a Zambian political candidate who, having protested China’s intrusiveness during the previous election and lost, now turns accommodating; the ascendant middle class of an industrial boomtown; African mine workers bitterly condemning their foreign employers, citing inadequate safety precautions and wages a fraction of their immigrant counterparts’. He will present a fresh perspective on the unknowns of modern Sino-African relations: why China is making the incursions it is, just how extensive its cultural and economic inroads are, what Africa’s role in the equation is, and just what the ramifications for both parties—and the watching world—will be in the foreseeable future.
Dr. Howard French is an associate professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Prior to this he spent 22 years as a foreign correspondent and was the Shanghai bureau chief for the New York Times from 2003 to 2008. In the early 1980s he worked as a French-English translator in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, and taught English literature at the University of Ivory Coast. His books include A Continent for the Taking: The Tragedy and Hope of Africa and Disappearing Shanghai: Images and Poems of an Intimate Way of Life. He is also the author of “China’s Second Continent: How a Million Migrants are Building a New Empire in Africa”, published in May 2014. His book was selected as one of the most notable books of the year by both the New York Times and The Guardian.
Supported by New Mexico Humanities Council and Sandia National Labs
