What does it mean to conduct ethnographic fieldwork in a territory where sovereignty is not only contested but suspended—where diplomatic ambiguity, imperial entanglements, and historical wounds saturate every conversation, every silence, and every refusal? In 2023, I undertook 12 months of ethnographic fiel…

When I first arrived in Sihanoukville, Cambodia, in 2022, I quickly began to feel that no-one was willing to speak openly with me. More precisely, no-one was willing to tell the truth. At the time, the city was deeply entangled in scam operations and other forms of crime, and mistrust permeated the atmospher…

I was kicked out of a WeChat group just a few hours after joining. ‘I’m sorry, but I have to,’ the group administrator messaged me before removing me—even though I had paid to join and had been vetted beforehand. The group comprised hundreds of employees of Chinese companies active in overseas infrastructure…

Researching Global China often requires navigating politically sensitive environments to which access is restricted, where narratives are contested, and where researcher identity may shape fieldwork dynamics in unpredictable ways. As geopolitical tensions intensify, both research participants and audiences i…

The field of Global China studies burgeoning over the past two decades proclaims that China must be analysed as an integral part of the global capitalist system (Franceschini and Loubere 2022). China’s global footprint takes variegated forms, including state-led and private investments, enterprises, infrastr…

It took so much time and effort to get to this point. As I stood before the formerly grand but now quite weathered doors of the project manager’s office, I was more excited than nervous. With me was my Chinese research assistant, Yan (a pseudonym, as are all names in this article). Together we had […]

This essay explores how we can ethnographically study contested Chinese multinationals when access is limited due to geopolitical sensitivities and technological competition. I argue that, despite these challenges, studying Chinese companies is essential to contribute nuanced empirical analysis to geopolitic…

On 23 March 1953, Armi wrote a letter from Helsinki to her fiancé in Paris, whom she referred to as Chi, informing him of their banns of marriage made at the church the day before. Armi and Chi had met only four months earlier in Paris during a brief visit Armi made to see friends […]

Over the past two decades, Chinese companies have undertaken numerous infrastructure development projects across Africa, contributing to local development. However, these high-profile projects have often attracted significant criticism due to ecological and environmental concerns, local conflicts, and socioe…

China is home to the world’s largest aquaculture industry, raising aquatic plants and animals for food, and was responsible for more than half of global production by 2016 (Zhao et al. 2021). Domestically, Chinese demand for seafood is expected to grow dramatically, with the gap between local demand and loca…