Romain Dittgen

Romain Dittgen is the first joint fellow at the African Studies Centre and the International Institute for Asian Studies, both in Leiden. Romain holds a PhD in Human Geography at the Sorbonne University in Paris (Panthéon-Sorbonne) and is an associate researcher at the South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA). He is also affiliated to the geography research institute UMR 8586 Prodig in Paris.

Romain's research deals with the spatial dimension of the Chinese presence in Sub-Saharan Africa. His focus is on settlement dynamics of public and private Chinese actors through an enclave perspective, looking in particular at how interactions are influenced and remodeled by local realities. More recently, he has been expanding this research angle towards the formation of Chinese ‘cultural spaces’. Being included in SAIIA’s ‘China in Africa project’ and ‘Global powers in Africa programme’, he has published several papers on China-Africa related topics.