International Studies Program faculty
Andrew Grant
Visiting Scholar
Andrew Grant
Ph.D.
Contact
Email: grantah@bc.edu
Courses
INTL 2201: Where on Earth: Foundations in Political Geography
INTL 2536: Contested Borders
INTL 2840: Global China: Belt and Road
Biography
I earned my PhD in political geography from UCLA in 2016. My research looks at the urban politics of place and the geopolitics of borders. I am particularly interested in Tibet and China’s borderlands. I am currently working on a book manuscript entitled The Concrete Plateau: Urbanization as Civilizing Machine on the Tibetan Plateau. Based on interviews and participant observation, the book looks at the social and political pressures faced by Tibetan migrants as they move to Xining, the largest city on the Tibetan Plateau. My other research has explored topics including how the China’s Belt and Road Initiative has influenced experiences of mobility at the Sino-Kazakh border and the aesthetic politics of post-BRI maps of China. I speak Chinese and Amdo Tibetan.
When I am not reading and writing, I enjoy hiking, trying new cuisines, and spending time with my family. I have lived on the Tibetan Plateau, in southern California, New England, and montane Colorado.
Publications
2018. “China’s Double Body: Infrastructure Routes and the Mapping of China’s Nation-State and Civilization-State,” in Eurasian Geography & Economics 59(3-4): 378-407.
2018. “Hyperbuilding the Civilized City: Ethnicity and Marginalization in Eastern Tibet,” in Critical Asian Studies 50(4): 527-555.
2018. “Channeling Xining: Tibetan Place-making in Western China during the Era of Commodity Housing,” in Annals of the American Association of Geographers 108(5): 1457–1471.
2017. ” ‘Don’t Discriminate against Minority Nationalities:’ Practicing Tibetan Ethnicity on Social Media,” in Asian Ethnicity. 18(4). 371-386.
2014. “Mega-events and Nationalism: The 2008 Olympic Torch Relay,” in Geographical Review. 104(2). 192-208.
Public Outreach
2019. Cosmic Infrastructure, in Made in China Journal 4(2): 108-113.
2017. Lurol at Sadjyel Village 2010-2017 Photo Essay. https://www.colorado.edu/tibethimalayainitiative/2017/12/02/lurol-sadjyel-village-2010-2017
Book Essays
2019. Authoritarian Cities Go Global, in Geopolitics 24(3): 771-775.