China has financed, built and refurbished new parliament buildings for African countries. Recent examples include parliament buildings in the Republic of Congo (Brazzaville), Gabon, Lesotho, Malawi, Seychelles, and Zimbabwe. The involvement of the Chinese government and Chinese construction firms in these building projects starts from their design, construction, furnishing, up to long-term maintenance. China’s financing of African parliament buildings is a new and tangible phenomenon around which to understand China-Africa relations, the evolution of African parliaments and policy-relevant debates on contemporary representative politics in Africa. This talk is based on research conducted in and around these Chinese government funded parliament buildings in Lesotho, Malawi and Zimbabwe. Data was collected through official access to all the three buildings, key informant interviews with political and civil society elites (former heads of state, cabinet ministers, foreign affairs ministry officials, donor aid coordination ministry officials, parliament executives, parliamentarians, public construction officials, NGO leaders, trade unionists, academics and journalists) and focus group discussions with a cross section of ordinary citizens who live and work around the buildings. This talk principally draws on the researcher’s field diary and focusses on how the study was carried out, how access to these sensitive buildings was negotiated, the complexities and rewards of conducting research in and around state buildings. The talk enhances our understanding of the practicalities of doing fieldwork in Africa, especially the ways in which African studies researchers can navigate the complexity of access to utilise state buildings as vantage points to gather vital primary data for their studies.

Innocent Batsani-Ncube (Ib) is Lecturer in African Politics at the School of Politics and International Relations at Queen Mary, University of London (QMUL). He researches Africa -China relations, Elections in Africa and the politics of African states’ nuclear power projects. His research has been recognized by the most prestigious Early Career Research prize in African Studies in the UK, the 2024 African Studies Association (ASA-UK) Best Thesis Prize. In addition, Ib received the 2023 Journal of Southern African Studies Terence Ranger Prize. His book China and African Parliaments is forthcoming at the Oxford University Press (2025). He is also project director of the QMUL 2025-2028 Regional Organisations and Electoral integrity peer review mechanisms in Africa project that is funded by the Leverhulme Trust.