The film 'New Silk Roads in Local and Global Politics' is a journey along maritime and land routes of the New Silk Roads from Xi'an to Mombasa, Duisburg to Chongqing, Gwadar to Makassar, Strait of Mallaca to Athens. It emerged from an attempt at understanding the impact and reception of infra-structure projects of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) across Africa, Asia and Europe. The film illumi-nates local receptions and implications of China’s global investments in transregional infrastructure projects. The film has emerged from the De:Link // Re:Link consortium research project at the Hum-boldt University of Berlin which by way of engaging with the notion of “link”, aims to bring local per-spectives and new dimensions of knowledge into focus: Local Insights and New Knowledges (Link).

John Njenga Karugia is a scholar of Transregional Memory Studies, Indian Ocean Studies, Africa-China Relati-ons, Asia Pacific Studies and Area Studies. His research is currently based at the Humboldt University of Berlin within the De:Link // Re:Link research consortium. He is a member of the Frankfurt Memory Studies Platform with a focus on memory politics, memory ethics and responsible cosmopolitanism. He is a Visiting Professor at Hasanuddin University in Makassar, Indonesia, with a focus on transoceanic maritime research, and teaching that focus on diverse aspects of the Afrasian Sea, otherwise referred to as; Ziwa Kuu, Bahari, Ratnakara, the Swahili Sea, Indian Ocean, Bahari Hindi. He has travelled widely for research stints in many countries. His rese-arch has been featured within various international exhibitions such as 'Indigo Waves and Other Stories: Re-navigating the Afrasian Sea and Notions of Diaspora' at Gropius Bau in 2023 and 'Gardens in Transition: Com-mitments, Obligations and Practices.' As a documentary film-maker, he has made two films: "Afrasian Memo-ries in East Africa" (2018) and "New Silk Roads in Local and Global Politics" (2025). He has been a Visiting Scholar at Duke University, Shanghai Maritime University, Quaid e Azam University etc.