What is your research focus?

I have two research areas of focus for now. One is China-Africa relationships, in which I combine my perspectives from political science and Asian studies. I look at 1) China’s soft power diplomacy in African countries and 2) how people in Africa view China and China’s soft power diplomacy effort. It’s about China’s diplomacy, but I take a people-centered approach. 

My work is mainly focused on surveying and interviewing people. I study global dynamics and especially focusing on global inequality. That doesn’t mean that I don’t look at the local context, because for example, global inequality and local inequality are very intertwined and share peoples’ experiences: lived experiences and daily experiences. 

When I traveled to China, what caught my eyes the most was daily lives of people and the rich culture, including arts, music, literature, and so on. That’s where my perspective on soft power comes in. It’s basically a power of attraction; it includes anything that might move peoples’ hearts, such as arts, music, pop culture, and whatnot. Combined with my interest in this broader viewpoint on China and Chinese culture, I was really interested in China's huge presence in many African countries. Often a lot of media articles and even scholarly articles talk about what China is doing and its economic activities, but less attention is paid to the voices of people in African countries. 

That’s what brought me to studying African countries. China is not just there economically. It also have a lot of investment in improving peoples’ attitudes towards China. What is happening in the world and my interests together brought me to this point where I study China’s engagement in African countries, but taking this particular perspective with China’s soft power diplomacy and peoples’ viewpoints and perspectives on that.”

What is a research project you are currently working on? 

I have a book project, a collaborative project with two other colleagues who have different specializations. The book is going to be on the Africa-China relationships, focusing on peoples’ attitudes towards China in African countries. We combine insights from survey data and interviews.

Why University of Oregon?

We have such a stimulating academic environment and community here, where students and scholars from different disciplinary backgrounds, academic interests, and experiences get together and learn together. It allows me to go beyond the disciplinary boundary and focus on what’s important. Focus on humans, the human-centered approach, and problem-driven approaches. We can draw from different tools from different disciplinary backgrounds to brainstorm more freely in a holistic manner about how we can address the issues that our world faces with critical and fresh eyes. 

I also love the Duck as a mascot. On a more serious note, I think UO really has wonderful language, literature, and area studies programs and having all of us at GSL, it really provides me a lot of collaborative opportunities to bridge humanities and social sciences. These collaborative prospects and opportunities are really exciting to me, and this is what I’m looking forward to here.

—Grace Connolly, College of Arts and Sciences