[ecrea] CFP: 2018 ICA preconference on One Belt One Road

*International Communication Association Prague 2018*

PRECONFERENCE: CONCEPTUALIZING THE NEW SILK ROADS AS COMMUNICATION: 
TOWARDS A NEW INTERNATIONAL ORDER?

_Date & Time: _
Wednesday, May 23, 2018; 9:00 am to 5.00 pm

_Location/Venue:_
2018 Conference Venue: Hilton Prague

_Division Affiliation:_
Global Communication and Social Change

_Organizers:_

Yu Hong, Zhejiang University, China, (yuhonguiuc /at/ gmail.com) 
<mailto:(yuhonguiuc /at/ gmail.com)>__

Daya Thussu, University of Westminster, UK, (d.k.thussu /at/ westminster.ac.uk) 
<mailto:(d.k.thussu /at/ westminster.ac.uk)>

*_Description and Objective _***

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI - formerly called One Belt, One Road), 
known as the New Silk Roads in the West, is China’s ambitious 
developmental and foreign policy initiative unveiled in 2013. It is 
aimed at creating dense connectivity of capital, goods, and people 
across the Eurasian surface, with a possible effect of rewiring global 
economic networks while further centralizing China in the global economy 
as a regional and even global power.

The rise of parochial and anti-globalization tendencies on the 
international scene, exemplified by Brexit, Trump’s presidency, and the 
ascent of terrorism, are complicating BRI but also giving China an 
unprecedented opportunity to redefine the territoriality, power 
formation, and political economy of globalization. Experts from area 
studies and International Relations have begun to engage with BRI as a 
crucial and grandiose China-centric project. They ask, will BRI 
facilitate a new international order or buttress the existing capitalist 
world order? With China’s rise, BRI as a state-led global intervention 
extends traditional inquiry about globalization and encourages closer 
attention to contestation, international order, transformation of 
states, and new requirements of global capitalism.

The communication perspective, however, has been largely missing from 
the discussion, although communication, as business, systems, 
discourses, and practices, permeates the programs and ramifications of 
BRI. For example, concepts such as connectivity, circulation, 
people-to-people exchange, and, above all, building a ‘Community of 
Common Destiny’ have set the tone for the official narrative; transport 
and communication infrastructures have spearheaded the formation of a 
China-centric socio-economic space; and the expansion of cyber business, 
cultural ties, and political influence hinges not only on 
techno-financial prowess but also on the capacity of consensus formation.

Thus conceptualizing BRI as involving new communication processes and 
formative communication spaces encourages scholars to delve more deeply 
into intersecting dynamics of a possible new international order, which 
include but are not limited to states and capitals, subnational and 
transnational regions, interstate relations and social formation, master 
narratives and social imaginations.

This preconference is intended to encourage focused discussion of BRI 
from the communication perspective, broadly defined. We welcome 
empirical studies from multiple conceptual frameworks, methodologies, 
and levels of analysis. Papers selected will document and characterize 
BRI as historical processes in relation with globalization, capitalism, 
and international order and, theoretically, reveal communication’s 
constitutive role in globalization as contested processes, in power 
formation amidst the changing dynamics of capitalist international 
relations, and in social formation across fractured national spaces.

*Participants (TBC)*

Anbin Shi, Tsinghua U

Yonghua Zhao, Renmin U

Wenshan Jia, Chapman U/Renmin U

Terry Flew, QUT

Michael Keane, Curtin U

Xin Xin, U of Westminster

Yu Hong, Zhejiang U __

Daya Thussu, U of Westminster

*How to participate*
If you wish to present a paper at this event, please send an abstract of 
300-400 words. This must be submitted to *(21723031 /at/ zju.edu.cn) 
<mailto:(21723031 /at/ zju.edu.cn)>* by *December 1, 2017*. The organizers will 
consider these submissions and advise on acceptance by *January 20, 2018*.

With financial support from College of Media and International Culture, 
Zhejiang University, *registration fees will be waived for paper 
presenters* (including breaks and lunch). For other participants, $75 
per person for ICA full members and $40 per person for students

Note: it is assumed that presenters will be available to attend the 
event for the full day. If you are coming from overseas, we recommend 
that you arrive in Prague by May 22, and make appropriate accommodation 
arrangements for that night.

*About Zhejiang University as the **Co-host*

Zhejiang University was founded in 1897 and is one of the earliest 
modern academies of higher education in China. Its College of Media and 
International Culture was established in 2006, of which the Department 
of Journalism was set up in 1958 and is one of the oldest journalism 
departments in China. Currently, the college has four departments and 
several research institutes, covering a wide range of robust and 
outstanding programs such as communication studies, journalism studies, 
new media and critical theory, international culture and social thought, 
and so forth.

洪宇 Yu Hong <https://usc.academia.edu/YuHong> (PhD, U of Illinois)
Author of Networking China 
<http://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/78hhc2pr9780252040917.html>
College of Media and International Culture
Zhejiang U <http://person.zju.edu.cn/hong1>, China


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