Call for Papers
The Chinese Presence in Algeria:
Maghrebi and African Prospects
MSH Paris-Nord
February 15, 2013
http://pairault.fr/chine-algerie 
The "China-Africa Group" (CECMC, UMR 8713 EHESS/CNRS) in collaboration with the GTM -CRESPPA (UMR 7217 Université Paris 8/CNRS) will organize on February 1, 2013 at the MSH Paris-Nord a workshop on The Chinese presence in Algeria: Maghrebi and African prospects. This exploratory project is part of the overall program launched by the "China-Africa Group" of the EHESS in 2010. It aims at assessing our current understanding of Chinese activities in Algeria and at specifying the Sino-Algerian relations, by comparison with what is going on elsewhere in Africa. The workshop will raise three main issues:
- Sino-Algerian relations;
- Various Chinese strategies of establishment in Algeria and their impact on the host economy and society compared to what is experimented elsewhere in the Maghreb and in Sub-Saharan Africa;
- Institutional, geopolitical, trade and technological challenges posed by the emergence of China to Western as to developing countries.
All correspondence has to be sent to the above address. The list of accepted proposals will be established no later than July 31, 2012.
Problematic of the China-Africa Research Group (EHESS-Paris):
The recent surge in economic and political relations between China and Africa is most often addressed in geostrategic terms. If such approaches clearly reveal the new role of China in Africa and in the world, they tend to fade out its special features. That's why the researchers of the "China-Africa Group" chose to address the topic of Chinese entreprises in Africa - both large public owned enterprises and small and medium businesses. By focusing on the variety of actors, we get a less globalizing, less homogenizing and, at least, less simplistic image of Chinese-African relationship (in the case of the workshop, Chinese-Algerian relationship). Hence, it reveals that the so-called "Chinese strategy in Africa" comes in many strategies each having its own logic. We therefore need to identify statistical and administrative sources of information and create a network of African, Chinese and Western researchers.
Organizers of "The Chinese presence in Algeria" Workshop:
- Thierry Pairault, economist (Doctor in Economics) and sinologist (former student of Langues'O in Paris and alumnus of the Institute of Foreign Languages of Beijing), former co-director of the Center for Research and Documentation on Contemporary China of EHESS, is currently emeritus research director at the CNRS and Vice President of the European Academy of Geopolitics. He teaches at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris in a seminar on the Economy of China dedicated to the relations between China and Africa..
- Fatiha Talahite, economist, HDR, is researcher at the CNRS and Associate Director of the Paris Centre for Sociological and Political Research (CRESPPA, UMR 7217 CNRS / Université Paris 8). Specialist of the Algerian economy, her current research focuses on reforms and economic transformations in Algeria, institutions and long-term growth in the MENA and on gender and economic development. She coordinates the MSH Paris-Nord research theme on "Flows, Trade and Institutions in Transmediterranean Relations ". From 2008 to 2011, she led the Working Group on Economies of the Mediterranean Arab World "Méditer" at the Centre of Economics of North Paris (CEPN, CNRS / Université Paris 13).
- Liu Hongwu, historian of international relations is a Chinese specialist of Africa. He spent part of his studies at the University of Lagos. He is currently professor of international relations, founder and director of the Institute of African Studies (Zhejiang Normal University, IASZNU) which is the leading Chinese research center dedicated to contemporary African development issues and contemporary Sino-African relations.
- Théophile Dzaka-Kikouta, economist (Doctor of Economics, University of Rouen) associated with the Office of Theoretical and Applied Economics (BETA, UMR 7522), is an assistant professor CAMES (African and Madagascan Council for Higher Education) at the University Marien Ngouabi of Brazzaville and director of the Center of Research and Prospective Studies (CREP) in Brazzaville. His research focuses on China's economic presence in Central Africa, regional integration in Central Africa as well as new forms of international investment and strategic partnerships in emerging countries.
