African Transnational Mobility in China: Africans on the Move (Routledge African Studies Book 41)

Considering the African presence in China from an ethnographic and cultural studies perspective, this book offers a new way to theorise contemporary and future forms of transnational mobilities while expanding our understandings around the transformations happening in both China and Africa. The author develops an original argument and new theoretical insights about the significance of the African presence in Guangzhou, and presents an invaluable case study for understanding particular modes of transnational mobility. More broadly, it challenges forms of (re)presenting and producing knowledge about subjects on the move; and it transforms existing theorisations and critical understandings of mobility and its shaping power. Through an ethnographic approach, the book brings us closer to a number of practices, features and objects that, while characterising the lives of Africans in Guangzhou, are also evidence of the interplay between individual aspirations, and the structural constraints embedded in contemporary regimes of transnational mobility. Raising critical questions about ways of (un)belonging in the precarious settings of neoliberal modernity and the future of African mobilities, this book will be of interest to scholars of transnational, African and Chinese Studies. Considering the African presence in China from an ethnographic and cultural studies perspective, this book offers a new way to theorise contemporary and future forms of transnational mobilities while expanding our understandings around the transformations happening in both China and Africa Cover 1 Half Title 2 Series Page 3 Title Page 4 Copyright Page 5 Dedication 6 Table of Contents 8 List of figures 9 Acknowledgements 11 Preface: A fleeting encounter 12 Introduction: Foreigners in China 16 China as a land of opportunities 16 Why Guangzhou?: an historic trading centre 17 Previous African histories in China: diplomacy through education 17 The Africa-China narrative 18 Academic engagements and methodological challenges 19 Methodological challenges 23 The structure of the book 25 A note on methodology: the cultural politics of ethnography 27 References 36 Chapter 1: The emergence of the ‘Chocolate City’: Multiethnic spaces, catering networks, and articulated subeconomies 39 Looking for the ‘Chocolate City’ 39 The city as a trade fair: urban transformations and foreign arrival 43 Welcome Aboard! 45 Counting the numbers: the early population surveys 51 The French connection: Dengfeng Village 54 China’s internal migrants: the ‘others’ on the move 58 Debunking the ‘Chocolate City’ narrative: multiethnic assemblages in a Chinese village 60 Vantage point: Dengfeng-Xiaobei 61 Catering networks and articulated subeconomies 64 The ‘ethnic enclave’ vs. the ‘African community’: modalities of sociospatial imagination 65 The ‘ethnic enclave’ = the ‘Chocolate City’ 66 The ‘African community’ and ‘bridge theory’ 67 Interconnected multiethnic archipelagos? 69 References 72 Chapter 2: The materialities of transnational movement: Food, hair, fashion, movies, and other ‘things’ 75 Translocal image-inations 75 ‘Things in formation’: gatherings of people and practices 77 ‘Africa fish’ and the emergence of transnational foodscapes 78 The translocal story of tilapia: from Lake Victoria to the Pearl River 79 The transnational hair route 82 Fashion 85 The DVD trade: transnational (re)production 88 Little things, ‘major’ transformations? 91 References 92 Chapter 3: Placemaking in Guangzhou: Emplacement, transiency, and the ‘politics’ of solidarity 94 Saturday morning football 94 Placemaking and mobility: at ‘home’ in Guangzhou? 95 Emplacement within transiency: African ‘immigrants’ in Guangzhou? 98 Multiple emplacements 98 Emplacement within transiency 101 Precarity and the strengthening of solidarity networks 102 Structuring solidarity through football 102 Dangerous entrapments 104 Structural discrimination and racism 106 ‘Precarious homing’, or the difficult task of feeling at ‘home’ in Guangzhou 107 Community offices as sites of alternative citizenship: African ‘politics’ in Guangzhou 109 Nigerian ‘wars’ in Guangzhou and the role of the ‘peacemakers’ 110 ‘We Africans deserve the treatment we get’ 112 ‘Same skin, but not the same habits’ 114 Citizenship on the move 116 ‘China is a difficult place’: emplacing people on the move in Southern China 118 Transient, mobile homes 120 References 122 Chapter 4: Making it on the move: Landscapes of aspiration in Guangzhou’s African music scene 125 Exploring Guangzhou’s nightlife 125 Landscapes of aspiration: hope, desire, and possibility 127 China as a platform: spaces of mobility and transnational possibilities in Guangzhou’s music scene 130 Under a pagoda on the banks of the Pearl River: meeting Ocha 130 A singer is a singer is a singer: sailing away to China 133 ‘I Feel Good’: becoming a central figure in the music scene 135 An apparent breakthrough 136 Aspirations and family making 139 Multitasking while on the move: serious entrepreneurialism 139 A trip to Panyu: meeting Do 140 Transnational (re)production 142 Becoming a musician (and other things) in China: meeting Ivoo 144 The paradox of aspirational mobilities: to move or not to move 147 China as ‘a land of hope’ and ‘the future’ 150 References 152 Chapter 5: Transnational flows: Gendered and racialised imaginaries of Africans in Guangzhou 153 Fascination over African presence 153 Wishing or washing blackness away? 154 Clichés in advertising history 155 Multiple readings and (the lack of) contextualisation 156 ‘Blackface’ and black faces in China: media, technology, and power 159 Racism and ignorance 163 The Guangzhou incident: persecutions, forced evictions, and quarantines 165 Governmental responses: #ChinaMustExplain 166 ‘Anti-African’ sentiments in the era of ‘racial nationalism’? 167 Making sense of the increase in ‘racial incidents’ 169 References 170 Chapter 6: Embedded transnationality: Problematic transnational mobilities, the burden of methodological nationalism 173 Producing ‘immigrants’, imposing labels 173 Aprioristic versus grounded approaches 175 African mobilities in transformation 178 Africa as a continent ‘on the move’ 178 Aspirational mobilities and entrepreneurial drives 179 Transnational journeys as processes of becoming 181 Migration and the burden of methodological nationalism 182 (dis)Locating individuals ‘on the move’ within the logics of migration studies 182 Grounding the transnational: multiple forms of mobility and mobility of forms 185 Transnationalism and the condition of transnationality 185 The paradigm of transnational migration 186 Forms of mobility/mobility of forms 188 References 190 Postscript: African transnational mobility in post-COVID-19 pandemic Guangzhou 193 Appendix: Interviews 195 Index 197 multiethnic;,subeconomy;,chocolate,city;,Guangzhou;,African,music multiethnic,subeconomy,chocolate city,Guangzhou,African music "Considering the African presence in China from an ethnographic and cultural studies perspective, this book offers a new way to theorise contemporary and future forms of transnational mobilities while expanding our understandings around the transformations happening in both China and Africa. The author develops an original argument and new theoretical insights about the significance of the African presence in Guangzhou, and presents an invaluable case study for understanding particular modes of transnational mobility. More broadly, it challenges forms of (re)presenting and producing knowledge about subjects on the move; and transforms existing theorisations and critical understandings of mobility and its shaping power. Through an ethnographic approach, the book brings us closer to a number of practices, features and objects that, while characterising the lives of Africans in Guangzhou, are also evidence of the interplay between individual aspirations, and the structural constraints embedded in contemporary regimes of transnational mobility. Raising critical questions about ways of (un)belonging in the precarious settings of neoliberal modernity and the future of African mobilities, this book will be of interest to scholars of transnational, African and Chinese Studies"-- Provided by publisher