Seminar: "The BRICS, China and Africa - from multipolar myth to subimperial reality", by Prof. Patrick Bond

Prof. Patrick Bond, professor of sociology at the University of Johannesburg and director of the Centre for Social Change, will visit ICTA-UAB to give a public lecture. The event will also include a presentation of a scientific article by Roberto Cantoni and Marcel Llavero-Pasquina and a discussion by Prof. Jason Hickel. It can also be followed online. 

Seminar: "The BRICS, China and Africa - from multipolar myth to subimperial reality"

Speaker: Prof. Patrick Bond, professor of sociology at the University of Johannesburg 

• Date: Wednesday, April 29th 2026
• Time: From 15.30h to 17.00h
• Venue: Sala Montseny (Z/022 & Z/023) ICTA-UAB and online https://zoom.us/j/97116768325?pwd=warbYjRMaE8P76j60lGyJsvqph70EO.1 

In 2026, with India hosting the BRICS bloc, there are several controversial features of the ongoing shift from Western (especially U.S.) unipolar power to a broader division of responsibility for world capitalist reproduction. But is that shift best described as multipolarism, or instead, subimperialism - by drawing upon scholars such as Ruy Mauro Marini, Samir Amin, Sam Moyo and David Harvey? Lessons drawn from China and South Africa in political-ecological processes on the African continent are important for wider critiques of extractivism within global value chains, of greenhouse gas emissions and climate negotiations, of geopolitics and war, and of financial pressures leading to popular uprisings. In these cases, we discover aspects of neoliberal unipolarism that are being strengthened even while U.S. imperialism becomes more extreme, based not on multilateral institutional power, but on brute paleoconservative tariff and neoconservative military muscles. Against the latter forces, the BRICS have failed to establish a unified position on trade, or defend the sovereignty of their own full member Iran and recent partner Cuba. Indeed most BRICS (especially Chinese) states, corporations and financial institutions resist long-overdue dedollarisation, which could seriously weaken Washington. Still, the subimperial practices do continue to generate 'BRICS dialectics,' and the way these unfold in 2026 will affect much broader interstate rivalries, capital accumulation processes, ecosystems and social struggles.

Patrick Bond is distinguished professor of sociology at the University of Johannesburg and director of the Centre for Social Change. His new book to be published in mid-2026, is BRICS Dialectics: Multipolar myths and subimperial practices. 

Programme:

• 15.30h - 16.10h Prof. Patrick Bond Lecture

• 16.10h - 16.20h Brief presentation of the article From Françafrique to Chinafrica? Ecologically unequal exchange, neocolonialism, and environmental conflicts in Africa by Roberto Cantoni and Marcel Llavero-Pasquina

• 16.20h - 16.40h Discussion by Prof. Jason Hickel

• 16.40h - 17.00h Q&A