The Anglo-Ethiopian Society
Lecture - Globalisation from the Vantage Point of Ethiopia
Caroline Knowles
Wednesday 31st January 2018
7:00pm, Room G3, Main Building, SOAS, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG - Public lecture (all welcome)
Caroline Knowles is Professor of Sociology at Goldsmiths University. She writes about migration and circulations of material objects – some of the social forces constituting globalization. She is particularly interested in cities, having done research in London, Hong Kong, Beijing, Fuzhou, Addis Ababa, Kuwait City and Seoul.
Caroline Knowles’ latest book Flip-flop: A Journey through Globalisation’s Backroads is a collaboration with artist Michael Tan, based on 6 years of ethnographic research following the biography of a pair of flip-flops, from China to Ethiopia. Beginning in the oil wells of Kuwait and ending at a landfill site in Ethiopia the journey carefully details the considerable ground that one pair of flip-flops covers from its production to its transportation, use and disposal. Knowles passes through five countries, powerfully demonstrating across the book the relationship between the macro and the micro level, placing economic, social and political histories against everyday lives and journeys.
Capacity at the venue is limited, so please reserve your place soon to avoid disappointment.