Researching the Belt and Road Initiative

This book offers a cross-civilizational and interdisciplinary approach to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) research to mitigate the problematiques of extant literature. Instead of employing conventional lenses of geo-political, geo-economic and geo-strategic analyses that are predominant, this book offers fresh perspectives that venture into other civilizational and disciplinary territories while critically seeking integration without falling into romanticizing or essentializing any notions. Due to epistemic inadequacies and other conceptual limitations of existing approaches, this book argues that a heuristic framework drawing from the negotiation between Western and Chinese perspectives as well as integration of anthropological-international relations conceptualizations can provide greater potency in unravelling the intricacies of BRI studies. This book is a timely contribution to the ameliorating of the rising tensions between US and China over the recent years. An interdisciplinary toolkit for researchers in BRI-related research, as well as those in government organizations, policy-making bodies, think-tanks, trade and industry sectors, the book presents a paradigmatic shift from a predominantly hegemonic Western thinking about the BRI and its role in the region, and within academic dialogue.