Christiaan De Beukelaer

Global supply chains have seen turbulent years of late. Between the COVID-19 pandemic, the Ever Given blocking the Suez canal, climate change-induced water shortages that left locks at reduced capa...

Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative frames China’s engagement with the world through trade and diplomacy. Hailed as a twenty-first century Silk Road, the initiative connects China to its trading partners across land and sea. Though it also serves as an engagement with the world at large, including ordinary citizens, among whom the readers of the anglophone China Daily . On the 5th of December 2019, this newspaper printed one of many “Public Interest Ads” promoting its logistical connection to the world as a driver of “Peace and Cooperation”. This article analyses the visual depiction of two mirrored ships on the advertisement. First, by reflecting on the tension between past and present depicted through an analysis of the image as an independent cultural item. Second, by contextualising the image and its meaning in the broader, considering political and ecocritical aspects of this image. In doing so, the article sheds light on the Barthesian mythology that underpins the visual connection between past and present – with an eye on the future.

Orthodox copyright scholarship frames piracy in ‘developing’ countries as a detrimental and illegal practice that results from these countries’ lack of economic, social and cultural development. It argues that piracy needs to be discouraged, regulated, and finally overcome for legitimate business to flourish. In this article, the authors challenge this viewpoint and question whether the implementation of international copyright instruments in legislation across Africa really promotes those local economies or if it merely exposes them to neo-colonial exploitation. While the early international treaties on intellectual property rights (IPR) were formulated by European states and implemented in most parts of Africa through colonial laws, more recent legislation has been globally implemented through institutions such as the United Nations or the World Trade Organization, which remain dominated by Western interests. Through a structured overview of the adoption of IPR treaties in African countries, the authors advance a political economy perspective of intellectual property rights as a (neo-)colonial regime.

This article examines the first decade (2010–2019) of the International Fund for Cultural Diversity (IFCD or the Fund). It first reviews how the IFCD works to promote cultural development and international cooperation within UNESCO’s 2005 Convention. It then explores how the Fund is financed and how its expected results are defined. The article argues that despite the broad visibility and normative influence of the Convention, the IFCD has not received the levels of financial support by both state Parties and the private sector as the Secretariat envisaged. Moreover, the shift to creativity has neither delivered better fundraising results for the IFCD nor fitted squarely into UNESCO’s broader cultural development frameworks. This opens further questions on the conceptualisation of structural changes as a key objective of projects supported by the IFCD, and the possibility of them addressing structural inequalities that characterise the political economy of the globalised cultural industries.

This article explores the political economy of the re-uptake of wind propulsion for maritime cargo transport so as to shift this sector onto a decarbonization pathway. It focuses primarily on how wind propulsion technologies, both old and new, aim to close the ‘emissions gap’ between projected emissions and the target to reduce them, as set by the International Maritime Organization in 2018. In doing so, it questions whether and how wind propulsion technologies could help attain ‘absolute decoupling’ of GHG emissions from industry growth, resulting from growing demand for shipping. It concludes that wind propulsion can help decarbonize the industry. But there is lack of certainty regarding the possibility to (a) deploy zero-emission technology at scale and (b) the extent to which reducing demand for shipping activity may suffice to attain full decarbonization. This article argues that a combination of both technological innovation and reduced demand is crucial to developing a decarbonization pathway for the shipping industry to meet Paris Agreement commitments at scale and in time. Key policy insights

Cultural policies that promote film production and exchange in small island states face numerous challenges (including training, funding, and infrastructure). Yet, in the Pacific, Indigenous film-making is a key strategy for redressing reductive framing of the region during the colonial period (which continues today), and the last 20 years has seen a growing movement towards greater Pacific Island film production. In addition, the creative industries (including film) are currently being explored as an alternative development pathway although this has met with mixed response from governments in the region. In this changing context, and recognising the political importance of Indigenous film production, this paper analyses the strategies of film-makers and other non-state actors in developing a regional film sector across Oceania – strategies of connection that potentially bring filmmakers and audiences together across the great ocean.

The 2020 COVID-19 pandemic has impacted virtually everyone on the planet. But the impacts have been diverse and uneven. In this article, I reflect on the plight of seafarers during the pandemic. I suggest that being ‘locked in’ is intrinsic to life at sea, as one can’t simply leave a ship. What makes the experience of the pandemic so challenging at sea is being ‘locked out’ of land. With border closures prohibiting ‘crew change’, many seafarers have been forced to extend their contracts, stay aboard, and postpone going home for long and often undefined periods of time. My article combines a reflexive personal narrative of being confined to a ship at sea for five months, while being excluded from land, with the question of how spending the pandemic at sea could be understood in relation to maritime labour.

The Indonesian city of Bandung presents itself as an “emerging creative city.” This raises the question of how an “emerging” creative city can attain realisation: when and where is the creative city accomplished? The formalisation of the creative city creates friction – to borrow the term from Tsing. This friction manifests in two ways. First, through its ontological opacity (what is the creative city?), Mould contrasts the “Creative City” (the mainstream understanding of the term) with the lowercase “creative city” (the more grounded, subversive understanding of the term). Second, through political contestation ( how and for whom is the creative city?) which Peck and Theodore question through the notion of “fast policy,” in dialogue with the notion of “slow policy.” However, rather than being a dead end, this article argues that “friction” can repoliticise the creative city by challenging the depoliticisation that occurred through its formalisation.