Frank Maracchione

Frank is a critical political economist and an International Relations scholar focusing on Global China and Central Asia. He is currently ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Politics and International Studies, SOAS University of London, where he is working on a book manuscript based on his PhD thesis on agency and coloniality in China-Uzbekistan relations. He specialises in everyday International Political Economy, looking at how local sociocultural actors and norms shape global political and economic processes. His work approaches globalisation not as a one-directional structural force, but as a site of contestation, where communities, capital/firms, and state elites negotiate meaning, power, and economic futures. Empirically, he explores the global rise of the People’s Republic of China, and how China’s presence abroad reshapes global (knowledge) production, development models, and political alignments in the Global South and beyond. His research spans Central Asia and Latin America, while exploring Europe and the U.S. as counter-sites of reaction and resistance. He has published on Globalizations, the International Spectator, Central Asian Survey, and Post-Soviet Affairs, amongst others. He is board member of ASIAC, the Italian Association for Studies on Central Asia and the Caucasus, and co-editor of their journal. He is also co-convener of the East Europe and Eurasia working group at the British International Studies Association (BISA).