Dr Tomaz M. Fares
Lecturer
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Profile
Biography
Tomaz M. Fares is a political economist specialising in global China and agrarian studies. Before joining the department, he lectured in international development studies at SOAS, University of London, and international business at the University of Bedfordshire.
Fares is the author of a monograph on China’s globalised agribusiness, published by Bloomsbury, and several articles in leading international academic journals. He has led research projects funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and Brazil’s National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq). He holds a PhD in Development Studies from SOAS University of London, a master’s degree in History from Peking University, and a bachelor’s degree in International Relations from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.
At the University of York, Fares serves as the co-director of the Interdisciplinary Global Development Centre. He also coordinated the International Studies Research Cluster and acted as the Departmental International Officer.
Fares plays a central role in the teaching, design, and coordination of the Political Economy of Global China (MA), Rising Powers (UG), and Politics Dissertation (UG) modules.
Research
Overview
Tomaz’s primary research concerns the political economy of rural China and its integration into global capitalism. He focuses on the power dynamics among Chinese agribusiness, examining the divergent economic strategies and political actions of leading players to secure and promote their interests at both national and international levels. Tomaz’s research also offers pertinent insights into state-market dynamics, highlighting Chinese state institutions as contentious spaces involving processes of wealth and capital accumulation. He challenges the notion of an undivided and stable political system in China, emphasising growing class divergences as the country expands globally.
Another main area of his research concerns China’s relationships with non-Western countries. This includes an in-depth investigation of China’s partnerships with parties and governments in Latin America during the Cold War. His study reveals a nuanced Chinese foreign policy, oscillating between promoting the "world revolution" and pursuing national interests through diplomatic endeavours.
Tomaz's scholarly interests also include state analyses, food regime analyses, environment and sustainable development, and Latin American studies.
Supervision
PhD Supervision:
- Yan Ziyu, Vulnerabilities of the Global Food System: The Case of Egyptian Wheat
- Li, Tonghua, The High Politics of Food: Investigating the Intersections between Geopolitics, Food Security and Environmental Sustainability
- Alexandros Mitsionis, Investigating political drivers of PTAs: Convergences and Divergences in the US and EU trade strategies in East Asia from 2001 onwards
- Andi Kurniawan, China’s Foreign Investment and Environmental Governance: A Comparative Analysis of Critical Raw Material Mining in Indonesia and Brazil
- Liliya Anisimova, How Do Chinese Green Development Policies, Host-Country Governance, and International Financial Mechanisms Interact to Shape the Environmental and Societal Sustainability of the Projects Which Are Part of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)?
Publications
Selected publications
Tomaz’s publications include:
- China’s Globalized Agribusiness: Capitalist Power and Political Rivalry. Bloomsbury
- The state of agribusiness: the politics of rentier strategies of Brazil’s agribusiness, 2003 - 2025. The Extractive Industries and Society. Co-authored with Leandro Vergara-Camus.
- The repoliticisation of China’s infrastructure investments in the global south: a case study of Brazil’s agri-food system. New Political Economy. Co-authored with Julia Rensi and Valdemar Wesz Jr.
- E-commerce as a battlefield in the US–China tech race: Effects on the global workplace in Brazil. Journal of Industrial Relations. Co-authored with Jörg Nowak & Ricardo Festi
- What Does the Mid-1990s Soybean Liberalization Tell Us About the Role of Foreign Investments in China’s Early Rural Industrialization?. Review of International Political Economy.
- China’s Financialized Soybeans: The Fault Lines of Neomercantilism Narratives in International Food Regime Analyses. Journal of Agrarian Change.
- Food Security and Power Struggle in the Chinese ‘Battle of the Beans’. Journal of Peasant Studies.
- Why and how is China reordering the food regime? The Brazil-China soy-meat complex and COFCO’s global strategy in the Southern Cone. Journal of Peasant Studies. Co-authored with Valdemar João Wesz Junior and Fabiano Escher.
