Digital Media, Covid-19 and Cross-border Mobility between China and Africa

The Covid-19 pandemic has greatly disrupted and reshaped human mobility as countries across the world implement various control measures. Historically, restricting human mobility to varying degrees has always been a major response to infectious diseases. What makes the Covid-19 pandemic stand out, however, is the widespread use of digital technologies in tracing and tracking Covid-19 and in collecting biometric data on a large scale through the employment of so-called “health codes” and “vaccine passports”.

Based on document analysis, participant observation, and in-depth interviews, this project aims to explore how cross-border mobility has been datafied and politicized between China and Africa during the Covid-19 pandemic. Practically, this project will shed new light on China-Africa engagement at both people-to-people and geopolitical levels. Theoretically, this project will contribute to our understanding of how digital media and biometric techniques are reshaping the spatial and temporal existence of human bodies.