Introduction: Research agendas raised by the Belt and Road Initiative

Abstract

We introduce this symposium on the politics and spaces of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, locating the papers as concept explorations resting on case studies that contextualize and historicize Belt and Road Initiative. In the case of the first paper that follows, this includes an exploration of the historiography of one of Belt and Road Initiative’s conditions of possibility, the Silk Road idea. We chart a burgeoning field of debate about Belt and Road Initiative, most often operating at broad levels of geopolitical abstraction. The papers here encourage further investigations of Belt and Road Initiative’s dynamics. Such work holds promise for wider theorizing of the interfaces between culture, economy, place, space, politics and infrastructure. Our closing remarks sketch key research agendas in these domains in the light of Belt and Road Initiative.