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Doctoral Colloquium PhD Project Lab
Last Friday, 3 May 2024, saw another iteration of the PhD Project Lab. Doctoral students from the University of Bonn and the University of Basel presented their research projects to an interdisciplinary audience of doctoral students as well as faculty members from the Institute.
In the first presentation, Paul Blickle (University of Basel) presented his dissertation project on “Ballast. A Global History of Balance at Sea in the 19th Century”, in which he addressed a severely underappreciated subject in maritime – and global history. Ballast serves as an analytical lens to measure and retrace the social, cultural and economic fabric of the 19th century world.
Yen-Chi Lu (University of Bonn) discussed the question of how and to what extent the global expansion of Chinese Information and Communications Technology companies are reshaping the core-periphery relations in the global digital economy. To address this question, he theorized how the structures of global economy are being transformed by the interplay of digital capitalism and then presented three case studies to uncover peripheral states’ agency against unfavorable structural constraints and the dominant position of foreign high-tech companies.
Dominika Geiger (University of Basel) presented her PhD project entitled “Across the Cobalt Supply Chain: The People’s Republic of China and the Outsourcing of Global Responsibility”, in which she analyzes the delicate situation of cobalt mining in the copper belt in general – and in the Democratic Republic of Congo in particular in the context of a mounting global demand for these mineral resources vital to facilitate the green energy transition. This all happens against the backdrop of an increasing geostrategic relevance of these resources and ever-expanding Chinese direct investments in Africa.
The PhD Project Lab is a platform of the Graduate Program European Global Studies which enables exchange between early-career and senior researchers and enhances the interdisciplinary dialogue at the Institute. It specifically aims to transcend disciplinary boundaries and is designed to provide a stimulating environment for interdisciplinary research by adopting innovative forms of teaching.
It brings together doctoral and postdoctoral researchers as well as professors of the research areas Global History of Europe, European Global Knowledge Production and European Law from the Institute for European Global Studies, as well as PhD students from the University, who are attending the PhD Lab in the context of the Katekisama program.
The event was organized by Corey Ross and Ralph Weber, the leaders of the research areas Global History of Europe and European Global Knowledge Production respectively.
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