Tom Narins
PhD, University of California, Los Angeles
MBA, University of Arizona
BA, Cornell University
About
Tom Narins is an Associate Professor of Geography and Planning with research interests in the critical geopolitics of China's growing engagement with the global economy. As a political and economic geographer with language skills, Tom has published on sovereignty issues relating to China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as well as on official Chinese lending to BRI-participant countries after the coronavirus.
His work has been published in peer-reviewed journals such as: Geopolitics; Human Geography; Territory, Politics, Governance; The Professional Geographer; Area; and The Extractive Industries and Society.
Research Interests
Geographical contours of the Digital Silk Road.
Publications
2025
Narins, T.P. 2025. “Official Lending, Optics, and Outliers: Chinese Debt and the Belt and Road Initiative after COVID-19,” in Schatz, E. and Silvey, R. (eds). Seeing China's Belt and Road. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 38-54.
Narins, T.P. 2025. “Sovereignty.” In: Warf, B. (eds) The Encyclopedia of Human Geography. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25900-5_39-1
2024
Narins, T.P. 2024. Southeast Asian Civil Society Organizations and Digital Rights in the Age of China’s Digital Silk Road. Asian Perspective 48(3), 479-499. https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/apr.2024.a935487.
Murton, G.; Narins, T.P. Corridors, Chokepoints, and the Contradictions of the Belt and Road Initiative. 2024. Area Development and Policy. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23792949.2024.2311904?src=exp-la
2023
Ho, C.Y; Narins, T.P.; Sung, Won. 2023. “Developing Information and Communication Technology with the Belt and Road Initiative and the Digital Silk Road” Telecommunications Policy 47. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.telpol.2023.102672
2022
Narins, T.P., Agnew, J. 2022. Veiled futures? Debt burdens, the Belt Road Initiative, and Official Chinese lending after Coronavirus. Human Geography, Volume 15, Issue 2, pp. 190–205. doi: doi.org/10.1177/19427786211045404
2020
Narins, T.P. 2020. The lure of Chinese State Capitalism in Latin America and the Caribbean
Territory, Politics, Governance. https://doi.org/10.1080/21622671.2020.1719192.
2019
Narins, T.P., Agnew, J. 2019. Missing from the Map: Chinese Exceptionalism, Sovereignty Regimes and the Belt Road Initiative. Geopolitics. doi: 10.1080/14650045.2019.1601082
2018
Klinger, J. M., Narins, T.P. 2018. New Geographies of China and Latin America Relations: Introduction to the Special Issue. Journal of Latin American Geography, 17(2), pp. 6-22. July 2018. University of Texas Press. doi: 10.1353/lag.2018.020
Fuller, T.L., Narins, T.P., Nackoney, J., Bonebrake, T., Sesink, P., Morgan, K., Trochez, A., Bocuma Meñe, D., Bongwele, E., Njabo, K., Anthony, N., Gonder, M.K., Kahn, M., Allen, W., Smith, T. 2018. Assessing the impact of China’s timber industry on Congo Basin land use change, Area, 00:1–10. doi: 10.1111/area.12469
Narins, T.P. 2018. Chinese trade engagement in Latin America compared to the European Union and the United States: The case of technology-intensive exports, The Professional Geographer, Volume 70, Issue 2, May 2018, Pages 219-229. doi: 10.1080/00330124.2017.1347797
2017
Narins, T.P. 2017. The Battery Business: Lithium Availability and the Growth of the
Global Electric Car Industry, The Extractive Industries and Society. Vol. 4, Issue 2. doi:
10.1016/j.exis.2017.01.013
2016
Narins, T.P. 2016a. Evaluating Chinese Economic Engagement in Africa versus Latin America, Geography Compass. 10/7 (2016): 283–292, doi: 10.1111/gec3.12270
Narins, T.P. 2016b. Are Chinese Economic Actors Poised to Dominate Latin American Economies?: A view from Bolivia and Chile, Global Studies Journal. Vol. 9, Issue 4.
2015
Narins, T.P. 2015. Dynamics of the Russia-China Forest Products Trade, Growth and Change. Vol. 46, No. 4, (December 2015), pp. 688-703. doi: 10.1111/grow.12108
2014
Muellerleile, C., Strauss, K., Spigel, B. and Narins, T.P. 2014. Economic Geography and the Financial Crisis: Full Steam Ahead? The Professional Geographer, February 2014, Vol. 66, No. 1, pp. 11-17. doi: 10.1080/00330124.2012.757819
2013
Narins, T.P. 2013. Ecuadorian State-Capacity Building through Territorial Strategic Asset Management, Journal of Latin American Geography, March 2013, Volume 12, Issue 2, pp. 33-59.
2012
Narins, T.P. 2012. China’s Eye on Ecuador – What Chinese trade with Ecuador reveals about China’s economic expansion into South America, Global Studies Journal, Volume 4, Issue 2, pp. 295-308.