China and the Power of Transitions: A Discussion of On-Going Research

The team of the ERC Worlds of Lithium has organised a 2-day workshop with Dr Huiwen Gong (Stavanger) to enhance knowledge exchange about China. The first day was dedicated to engagements between research programmes and discussions about future projects. On the second day, our team organised a workshop to discuss papers-in-the-making about the role of China and energy transition materials. The emphasis of the activity was on bringing together different disciplines and scholars to think collectively and improve our publications before submission.

On the occasion, we counted with three papers addressing China in relation to energy transition materials. These manuscripts were provided by Jewellord Nem Singh, Assistant Professor of International Development at the Institute of Social Studies in The Hague and Principal Investigator of the ERC-funded programme GRIP-ARM; Huiwen Gong, Associate Professor for Regional Studies and Innovation at the University of Stavanger, and Pablo Ampuero-Ruiz, Postdoctoral researcher with the ERC-funded programme Worlds of Lithium at the University of Amsterdam.

In this closed workshop, guests were invited based on their expertise and potential interest. Each paper was discussed by an invited scholar before the floor was opened for more collective reflections. Roger Creemers, Assistant Professor at the Leiden Institute for Area Studies (LIAS); Julia Bader, Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Amsterdam, and Willy Sier, Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Utrecht University each were assigned a paper to discuss. Their commentaries were not only highly relevant and helpful for the authors, but also allowed for new reflections and ideas emerging from the materials at hand.

The event was successful in its endeavour to build bridges and think collectively. We hope to see the final form of these articles out soon!