“The China Girls”: Development Dreams, Labor Struggle and Global Entanglements in Ethiopia’s Special Economic Zones

A central claim in debates on Africa’s shifting global relations is that South–South cooperation, particularly through large-scale infrastructural projects can drive technology and skills transfer. I revisit this assumption in the context of recent global and local shocks and their uneven consequences on the ground. Drawing on ethnographic research in Ethiopia’s Hawassa Special Economic Zone (HSEZ), the study analyzes how multipolar power dynamics, particularly among China, the United States, and Ethiopian state actors are experienced and reinterpreted by local industrial workers.

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