Dr Safa Joudeh

I am a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter, working on Mapping Connections: China and Contemporary Development in the Middle East. My research is situated at the intersection of critical policy studies, global political economy, and critical economic geography.

My work examines the political economy of China’s global infrastructure megaprojects under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), focusing on the implications of Chinese infrastructure deployment and industrial capacity cooperation programs for host countries in the Middle East. Specifically, I analyse emerging forms of investment and revenue streams tied to China’s maritime and industrial infrastructure development in Egypt and the Arab Gulf.  My work engages with themes such as the political economy of infrastructure, Global Value Chain industrialization, land rentierism and the infrastructure-speculation nexus. Additionally, my interests extend to global economic governance, knowledge transmission and South-South relations.

I earned my PhD from the Department of Development Studies, SOAS University of London. My doctoral research examined contemporary processes of global spatial-economic restructuring in the context of China’s economic zone program in Africa. I specifically explored the dynamics of Chinese manufacturing FDI in China’s Economic and Trade Cooperation Zones in Egypt.  My doctoral research was partially funded by the Civil Society Scholar Award from the Open Society Foundations and a research grant from the Economic Research Forum, supporting fieldwork in the Suez Economic and Trade Cooperation Zone in Egypt.