Africans in China

Doing a PhD is never easy. It is filled with moments of happiness, excitement, and of course sometimes frustrations and struggles. At this stage, I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to those persons that I have encountered in this adventurous journey. Without all of them, I had not been able to start and complete such a challenging PhD project. First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest appreciation to my promoter Prof. Dr. Pieter Hooimeijer, who has offered insightful guidance that extended beyond research to wisdom for life. His intelligence consistently steered me in the right direction, offering many inspiration and enlightenment. He patiently entertained my foolish questions and provided brilliant answers, such as when I inquired about choosing the right theory, the essence of geography, or the purpose of academia. His unwavering support boosted my confidence and facilitated my growth. Secondly, I am very happy to say thanks to my co-promoter Dr. Gideon Bolt, the very supportive and helpful back-up supervisor with a good sense of humour, who has given deep supports and assistances on literature and speeded up my growth and secured me on the right track during the PhD. His fast-working speed, inspiring ideas and sense of responsibility and conscientiousness also encourages me to continue my enthusiasms about research. Additionally, I extend sincere gratitude to my other co-promotor Dr. Bas Spierings. I appreciate him for his sharing of literature, and supervising on the methodology on qualitative research, with his very detailed, critical, inspiring and very helpful comments and suggestions. I will also give my sincere thanks to my external passedby supervisor Prof. Dr. Ronald Van Kempen, a very nice and humorous, but also strict and careful professor who supervised my academic growth and progress with emails asking me 'how is the research going recently' and cared about my personal life in the Netherlands by sending emails asking 'how is your life recently'? His great passion, thoughtful behaviours and marvellous words on research had always encouraged me to continue my academic journey when I met up with numerous difficulties in the process. I feel fortunate to have crossed paths with him though we shared only one-year happy research time with each other. Furthermore, I express my gratitude to my master supervisor, Prof. Dr. Zhigang Li, who was the enlightened mentor in academia when I knew nothing, and generously shared a great deal of literature and data on this topic, laying the foundation for my research. I am also thankful to Heidi Haugen, who supervised me from the beginning and trained me how to do fieldwork. I enjoyed the time when we were doing fieldwork together in Guangzhou (with her lovely little son). Thanks would also be given to other professionals who have generously sent me literature, such as Dr. Ilse van Liempt,

This article addresses some of the challenges faced by Africana immigrants in China from the perspective of structure and agency. Following a review of the core concepts in the literature is discussion of the structural changes currently evident in China and how these impact on the sense of agency of domestic migrants and foreign immigrants. This is followed by an overview of the literature of Chinese perceptions of race. That structural framework sets the stage for a discussion of the features of the contemporary Africana population in China followed by an explanation of the methodology used and profiles of the subjects. In the results section issues of home, reflexivity, structure and agency, relations with the Chinese, enclaves, race and religion and intimacy are discussed. The tentative conclusion is that for Africana immigrants agency is often enhanced by the deployment of their intellectual skills that are in demand in China but is constrained with regards to the exercise of r...

The prologue to this volume of the Routledge African Studies, entitled African Transnational Mobility in China, Africans on the Move, describes Roberto Castillo's experiences in China, focusing on a chance encounter with a man named Myers during a train journey. Myers, originally from Sierra Leone, shared his journey to China in search of opportunities, highlighting the challenges faced by foreigners in a new country. Castillo reflects on the uncertainties and difficulties Myers encountered in China, expressing concern for his well-being. This encounter with Myers and subsequent news events of a demonstration involving Nigerians in China, led the author to ponder the complex dynamics of immigration and cultural integration in China.

The recent rise of African communities in Guangzhou has been widely noted. To understand this ‘Chocolate City,’ with a series of field surveys in 2006-2010, we examine its different development stages and shed particular light upon its internal and external linkages. Three modalities: the emerging enclave, the prosperous enclave and the collapsing enclave, have been identified. The rise of the ‘Chocolate City’ has been mainly attributed to the rise of Sino-Africa trading and the efforts of local entrepreneurs. The prosperity of the City was backed by the local states. However, the involvement of local polices, the reform of the local immigration regime and the deterioration of economic relations resulted in its recent collapse. We argue that this ‘Chocolate City’ is a restructuring ethnic enclave underlying the impacts of ‘transient glocalization.’ The rise and fall of the ‘Chocolate City’ indicates the dynamic relations between the transient global-local nexus, immigration regime, ...

This essay offers a historical overview of processes of immigrant political incorporation in the United States. It identifies three dimensions of incorporation—legal, cultural, and institutional—and argues that the unevenness of progress among these three dimensions has rendered the process of incorporation fraught and frequently marked by contradiction. It also distinguishes between “acquiescent” and “transformational” modes of incorporation and stresses that the latter, though often perceived as threatening by the native-born, is often the more enduring and meaningful way of becoming American. Finally, it assesses the prospects for incorporation among immigrants in the United States today.

In the literature on the incorporation of immigrants, ethnic enclaves are described as residential spatial concentrations fulfilling several economic and social functions for its residents. This paper questions whether this model is applicable for understanding the African concentration in China. Based on fieldwork in 2012 and 2016, this paper tries to give an overview of the changing dispersal patterns of Africans in Guangzhou and to explain how the new African clusters are connected to the areas where African businesses are concentrated. The initial African clusters may have lost their dominant role in the housing of African migrants, yet they are the focal point of the African communities in Guangzhou, as both commercial and leisure activities remain concentrated here. We argue that while there is no enclave (anymore) in the sense of a contingent area where Africans constitute a big part of the population, the African clusters still fulfils some functions that are associated with an ethnic enclave. However, the obstacles that the Chinese authorities put in the way of obtaining a long-term residence permit make it highly unlikely that African clusters in Guangzhou will develop into the type of ethnic enclaves that are described in the Anglo-Saxon literature.

This article looks at the livelihoods and lives of African traders coming to Hong Kong and Guangzhou. These traders are practising “low-end globalization”, involving small amounts of capital, and semilegal or illegal transactions under the radar of the law. The article first considers who these traders are, portraying them as, typically, members of the upper crust of their home societies. It then considers these traders in Chungking Mansions, Hong Kong, a building that is an entrepôt between China and the developing world. Finally, it looks at traders’ livelihoods and lives in Guangzhou, South China, and traders’ efforts to succeed in mainland China. The article argues that one essential economic role China plays today is in manufacturing the cheap, sometimes counterfeit goods that enable Africa and other developing-world regions to experience globalization; the African traders who come to China help make this possible.

This study attempts to analyze the types of metaphors and their social functions in Chinese news media's anti-epidemic discourses to show how Chinese official media mobilizes society through discourse strategies. A total of 58 commentary articles on China's anti-epidemic response between January 26, 2020, and April 5, 2020, are selected from People's Daily to analyze the types of metaphors and their social mobilization functions. The research adopts the qualitative analysis method to identify, classify metaphors, and expounds on metaphors' social mobilization function and realization mechanism. Linguistic statistics software AntConc is used to count the total number, frequency and resonance value of all kinds of metaphorical keywords to show the application of all types of metaphors in discourse. The social mobilization function of the metaphors is mainly to enhance people's understanding of the epidemic and the characteristics of the anti-epidemic work, thus promoting the government's anti-epidemic policies and propositions to be widely accepted. The realization of the social functions of metaphor is inseparable from people's complex psychological mechanisms. This mechanism is mainly composed of cognitive, rational, and emotional systems, which jointly promote people's cognition and identification of metaphorical discourse.

Chinese cities like Hong Kong, Guangzhou or Yiwu have become major ports of call for Sub-Saharan African traders active in the import-export trade of Chinese goods to Africa. This study highlights the role of African intermediaries in the city of Guangzhou, who work as negotiators within the Sino-African trade system. Between 2008 and 2011 33 case studies were conducted, using qualitative interviews and participatory observations. A qualitative network approach was used to investigate the intermediaries’ business practices as they build up multi-local economic relations. Different forms of knowledge embodied in the business practices were of special interest for this paper. Results show the importance of multi-local forms of organisation across different nations and ethnic boundaries as well as the relevance of experiential knowledge for the success of these organisational forms. The findings may open up a research perspective on the organisation of transnational migrant business ne...

Safety perceptions have received considerable attention in criminology and geography, yet few studies have looked into international migrants to developing countries. This study proposes a conceptual framework to account for migrant-specific characteristics and examines this framework with a sample of African migrants in Guangzhou and Foshan, China. Results from multilevel ordered logistic regression show that predictors of their perceptions of property safety and personal safety are different. Consistent with literature, their satisfaction with income in China, family support, and prior victimization experience strongly predict migrants' sense of security. Besides, we further find that perceived discrimination, indicative of migrants' acculturation process, decrease their sense of safety, and passport-check experience, indicative of migrants' relationship with local police, significantly lowers their personal safety perception. Migrants from countries with worse security conditions perceive a higher personal safety in China. Social trust, especially migrants' trust in Chinese businessmen and religious fellows are also associated with their security perception. The effect of geography is also examined but no substantial variation in safety perceptions is observed among four Diasporas. Findings of this study provide insight that may help reevaluate policies affecting daily life of African migrants and their perception of safety.

A centre for Asian and intercontinental immigration and export-oriented production, the city of Guangzhou is at the forefront of China's extroversion. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, this paper examines informal governance mechanisms that coordinate the circulation of goods and capital between China and Africa. The question to be addressed is: What roles do mobility and sojourning play in governing trade relations? The analysis is informed by research from three fields: economics scholarship on the trade-migration nexus, ethnographic studies of informal transborder trade, and historical accounts of long-distance trade in precolonial and colonial eras. These traditions point to different interlinkages between the mobility of people and goods. China's exports to Africa have increased in tandem with the number of visitations by African itinerant traders. The empirical discussion demonstrates that the emergence of intercontinental movements of goods and people between Mainland China and Africa was predicated on the brokering role played by African sojourners in Guangzhou. Of particular importance was informal hospitality and logistics infrastructure set up by Africans in the late 1990s, which has subsequently evolved and adapted to new circumstances. This infrastructure has facilitated the mobility of people and goods and increased the pace at which trading capital circulates.

In this talk, I review a Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) plan of action to increase the number of Africans studying in China with Chinese government support. This commitment from the Chinese government has led to a conspicuous presence of Africans in Chinese universities. I outline the issues and challenges that African students, especially newly-arrived ones, face ‐ from problems in using Chinese as a language of instruction to cross-cultural challenges in cuisine and other aspects of the Chinese society. The data derive mainly from questionnaire surveys and interviews in Chongqing in 2009, where in that year alone over 50 Africans arrived to study science, engineering, and other courses in one of the universities in that city. The experiences of these students both strengthen and challenge a cross-cultural

African migrants in Hong Kong and the rest of Greater China are often confronted with numerous social and economic constraints. Notwithstanding, extant studies have not adequately examined how these challenges affect the psychological wellbeing of Hong Kong's African economic migrants specifically. Using a qualitative research design underpinned by the concept of diaspora space, this article discusses the social aspects of psychological wellbeing among African economic migrants in Hong Kong. Specifically, it shows how the attitudes of local Hong Kongers (本 地人) towards African economic migrants affect the psychological distress of the African migrants. The locals' attitudes influenced the Africans' psychological distress in three non-exclusive ways, namely confusion of personal and social identity (identity as black people); perceived discrimination; and difficulty in forming lasting relationships with the locals. The findings are discussed within the broader discourse of diasporic migration and wellbeing.

This paper studies the representations of Africans and African cultures in Hong Kong media and the political, social, and cultural significance in shaping the socioeconomic wellbeing of Africans in the city. With the rising population of Africans in Hong Kong and the evolving nature of Africa-China relations, Africa and its cultures have become more prominent across Hong Kong's media. Representations of the African continent in Chinese medium newspapers in the city help define the local understanding of African peoples and cultures. By analysing the construction of "African-ness" in these representations, this article shows that African cultures are constantly portrayed in relation to those of Hong Kong. It is by studying the absences and presences of "African-ness" that it can be shown that Africa is often narrated as the subordinate of the local. Significantly, this hierarchical system not only predetermines but also crystalizes the local understanding of Africa.

This article is an exploration into the personal aspirations that converge in Guangzhou's African music scene. I argue that despite being often traversed, articulated, fuelled, and constrained by economies and economic discourses, aspirations are not necessarily economic or rational calculations. I contend that the overarching trading narrative about “Africans in Guangzhou” has left little space for issues of agency, emotion, and aspiration to be considered in their own right. Drawing on a year of continuous ethnographic fieldwork, I show how aspirations are crucial arenas where the rationales behind transnational mobility are developed, reproduced, and transmitted. Indeed, aspirations can be thought of as “navigational devices” (Appadurai 2004) that help certain individuals reach for their dreams. By bringing the analysis of aspirations to the fore, I intend to provide a more complex and nuanced landscape of the multiple rationales behind African presence in Southern China; pro...

Despite the large number of young population, colossal talent and many resources in African countries, Africans in highly poorly managed countries are often unlikely to achieve economic reliance and better living conditions. This situation triggers the migration of Africans in their numbers to the search for greener pastures. This study explored how Guangzhou, a Chinese commercial city, attracts Africans. Specifically, it used the case of Malian Muslim Businessmen (MMB) to investigate the lifestyle, challenges and influence of their religion in daily activities. Both qualitative and quantitative approaches with convenient sampling methods were used to collect the data, administered by questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, and participant observation. The results showed that the city of Guangzhou attracts many Africans including MMB due to business, and their lifestyles on leadership, food and religion do not differ significantly from their home countries. The study also identi...

This study uses the concept of 'place-making' to consider political engagement on Sina Weibo, one of the most popular microblogging services in China. Besides articulating statepublic confrontation during major social controversies, Weibo has been used to recollect and renarrate the memories of a city, such as Guangzhou, where dramatic social and cultural changes took place during the economic reform era. The Chinese government's ongoing project to create a culturally indifferent 'national identity' triggers a defensive response from local places. Through consuming news and information about leisure and entertainment in Guangzhou, the digital narration of the city becomes an important source for Guangzhou people to learn about their geo-identity, and the kind of rights and responsibility attaching to it.

In this article, we reflect on critical questions relating to the future of African migration to China in the post-COVID-19 world at the backdrop of the mistreatment many Africans received as part of the pandemic control in China. These questions include: Is this the end of African migration to China as we know it? Will COVID-19 fundamentally change how we think about migration, mobility and wellbeing in the People's Republic of China (PRC)? What will be the effect of the post-COVID-19 regime on the social identity and wellbeing of the African diaspora in Guangzhou and other Chinese cities? ARTICLE HISTORY

The steady growth of Chinese migrants to South Africa in the past decade provides an opportunity to use Amartya Sen's (2001) capabilities approach in the field of immigration. This theoretical framing along with qualitative data collected from in-depth interviews and participant observation in three South African cities, Johannesburg, Durban, and Bloemfontein, reveals that the Chinese employ, what I call, a small pond migration strategy--utilizing mobility to maximize their social, economic, and human capital. I argue that mainland Chinese migrants move to South Africa because of a desire to adventure out of China and pursue freedoms associated with being one's own boss. Once in South Africa, they choose to stay because of comfortable weather and a slower pace of life, despite losing freedoms associated with high crime in Johannesburg. As a contrast to these mainland Chinese migrants, Chinese migrants from the province of Fujian embrace a hyper-small pond migration strategy ...

This review uses multilingual sources to illuminate China–Africa encounters in historical, socialist, and postsocialist contexts. It emphasizes interregional connections over time and uses nuanced ethnographic accounts to complement macrogeopolitical analyses. The article focuses on mutual stereotypes as well as on the negotiation of social and cultural barriers in everyday life. It challenges static, bounded conceptual categories in social science and policy research. The ethnographic studies cited highlight the complexities of human agency and historical legacies on the ground and show the contested democratization of space and opportunities that ensue both when Africans enter Chinese social fields and vice versa. In the process, these examples force us to rethink analytical assumptions about mobility, hierarchy, and political economy in ways that complicate Cold War–derived understandings of both China and Africa.

Grounded in ethnographic observations, this article offers a commentary on the visible and invisible dynamics of mobility between China and West and Central Africa. It follows the transnational trajectories of African trader women and takes stock of some of the weight that these women shoulder during trips where goods and money are set in motion. The materiality of the transported consumer items shapes traders’ experiences of mobility and immobility. Trader women also must carry immaterial baggage relating to what their mobile, racialized female bodies represent to various people they encounter. Specifically, the Chinese state and general public view their bodies as threats to social order and, in the context of Ebola and COVID-19, as threats to public health. Our analysis also attends to the weight that female scholars metaphorically carry while conducting research. We devote space to addressing our presence as White researchers, thus attending to methodological opaqueness alongsid...

Africans presence in Guangzhou epitomizes a sweet bitter fragrance for China relative to governance, law compliance and international relations. This study grounded on a case study design with Ghanaians Living in Guangzhou as case investigated who, how and the where of African Ghanaians in the Chinese diaspora governance structure. The study setting was the Ghanaian Church in the De kanlu area in Guangzhou where most Ghanaian lived in Guangzhou, China. The qualitative case study approach was deemed appropriate method for the study. Through participant and non-participant observation and key informant interviews supported with Focus Group discussions, data were collected through direct visits to the Ghana restaurants, Ghana Community meetings and the Ghanaian church for 11 months between in March 2016 and January 2017. Data were analysed using emerging and constant thematic analysis. Central to the findings was the observation that the Ghanaian diaspora in Guangzhou has two main approaches of governance: the formal and the informal approaches. The focus of the former approach facilitations is engineered by the Guangzhou city government while the informal approach relied on the Church of Pentecost in Guangzhou (Ghana Church) in-built and internalized working and governance structures for governing Ghanaians. The informal self-governance approach was considered more trustworthy, effective and efficient compared to the formal arrangement. This new diasporan preferred governance approach has an eclectic character and defined as the religio-political diaspora governance approach emanating from the Ghanaian community assessment and evaluation.

, UNESCO included "Acupuncture and moxibustion as part of Chinese traditional medicine" on its Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. This article will consider the challenges of this "patrimonialisation" of Chinese medicine by going over the discipline's recent history. Chinese medicine (中醫zhongyi) finds itself in a paradoxical situation, compared in practical terms with biomedicine, in perpetual reclassification, and held up for good or for bad reasons. Its inclusion in the cultural heritage list highlights several problematic issues. The "invention" of "Traditional Chinese Medicine" (TCM) has been underway for more than 50 years. But the ambivalent nature of teaching has affected its transmission from expert to apprentice, and questions are constantly raised regarding its scientific credentials as well as its clinical and therapeutic practices. At a time when acupuncture and Chinese pharmacopoeia are increasingly spreading in Europe, the Americas, and Africa, and thus form part of the circulation of knowledge and medical know-how, their acquisition of heritage status marks a new stage in their ceaseless reconfiguration at both national and international levels. Many questions arise as to the definition of this medicine, its social and cultural construction, and its complex status in China and abroad. This article's main point will be an analysis of texts offered in the national list of masterpieces and submissions made to UNESCO for inclusion on its list. Chinese medicine's recent history, progress, and debates Chinese medicine as found in China now is the fruit of a long history, diverse political decisions, and a theoretical and practical reconstruction. (1) After having had an ambiguous status in communist China until Mao Zedong's death, it began to enjoy special attention and support from the Ministry of Health from 1980 onwards. Professionalisation of traditional China p erspe ctiv es Sp ecial feature

A dance film made by two Belgian directors collaborating with Guangdong Modern Dance Company, An African Walk in the Land of China (2015) attempts to explore the encounter of an African woman with Chinese workers in urban China in the age of “ChinAfrica.” In this work, the co-directors create a “duet” between an ensemble of Chinese dancers portrayed as blue-collar workers and a black female dancer depicted as a woman from an unspecified country in Africa. In my analysis, I juxtapose choreographic and cinematic representations of the African woman and Chinese workers with the complex social reality of their diverse experiences of encounters. Resisting any singular reading, the dance film provokes questions and stirs up reflections about the ever-intensifying interactions between Chinese and Africans at economic, political and cultural levels operating under global capitalism. This seemingly detached approach, while offering opportunities for multiple readings of the film, also glosse...

In the past couple of decades, the variety of affordable trade goods in African markets as well as the number of both African and Chinese traders who import such goods from China have grown gradually. Through interviews with travelling traders and observations made in Cameroonian markets, this article examines the trajectories of Cameroonian traders who travel to China, and other Asian countries; it also studies their experiences of rivalry with Chinese traders in Cameroon whom they accuse of unfair competition. This article argues that different categories of Cameroonian traders experience this competition with a different intensity and that travelling traders who are not yet fully established in the local market feel mostly challenged by the competition with Chinese traders. To improve their situation, all traders argue that the Cameroonian government ought to intensify its efforts in regulating trade and reducing customs fees and taxes.

provides economic analysis and policy advice with the aim of promoting sustainable and equitable development. The Institute began operations in 1985 in Helsinki, Finland, as the first research and training centre of the United Nations University. Today it is a unique blend of think tank, research institute, and UN agency-providing a range of services from policy advice to governments as well as freely available original research. The Institute is funded through income from an endowment fund with additional contributions to its work programme from Finland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom as well as earmarked contributions for specific projects from a variety of donors.

Relations between China and African nations have intensified following the ratification of several multilateral and bilateral developmental agreements, especially after the third Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) summit in 2006. In the past decade, the relations have transcended to the micro-level, with important implications for households and individuals. Of note are the varying forms of population migration between the two places for reasons ranging from business ventures, education, asylum-seeking and family making and reunification. Using various primary and secondary data sources, the seven articles in this special issue delve into the wellbeing, social identities and different kinds of socio-cultural and economic inequalities of Africans in China and Chinese in Africa. Altogether, the articles affirm that policies and mechanisms to ensure decent living conditions, enhanced sense of belonging and social equity among Africans in China and Chinese in Africa are critical ...

This article examines the racial implications of daily life interactions between African traders and rural-to-urban Chinese migrants in China’s southern metropolis Guangzhou, due to a recent wave of African migration to China. Differing from previous generations of Africans in China who were mainly students from elite backgrounds, these new migrants consist of individual traders and small entrepreneurs who purchase cheap consumer goods in China and ship them back to Africa for sale. Despite language barriers and cultural differences, the two migrant groups share similar structural marginalization in urban China due to their non-resident or non-citizenship status. By focusing on these two underprivileged groups in urban China, this research foregrounds a grassroots interpretation of Sino/African trade relations, which is largely absent from official propaganda. I argue that racial learning between non-elite Chinese and Africans is a bi-directional and interactive process, which may involve mutual stereotypes and racialization on both sides. However, Chinese migrants’ shared structural marginalization with black Africans may also give rise to alternative constructions of blackness that move beyond the hegemonic black/white binary. Due to the relative absence of whiteness and white privilege in grassroots Chinese/African interactions, the notion of white supremacy can be de-centered and replaced by multiple parameters for evaluating blackness, such as nationality, English proficiency, class and economic status, indigenous aesthetic values, religion, and cultural differences.

Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Guangzhou and Lagos, this paper explores transnational trade activities and family strategies among Chinese/Nigerian interracial couples in the context of growing China/Africa trade relations and the recent tightening of China's immigration control. It examines how restrictive immigration policy at the state level and anti-black racism at the personal level impact romantic and marriage relations between undocumented Nigerian men and Chinese migrant women from less developed regions in China. I argue that the transnational business and family strategies envisioned and practiced by these couples reflect both the structural constraints in their incorporation into local Chinese society, and their active quest for economic prosperity and upward mobility in the global economy.

Based on ethnographic research in South China’s megacity Guangzhou, this article examines the gaps and contradictions in the central and local Chinese states’ efforts to regulate migrant traders from Africa. I identify economic interests, everyday racism, and ideological concerns as three major factors in shaping the nonrecording tactics of the Chinese states. The article argues that nonrecording is a practical tactic pursued by both the central and local states in order to balance multiple and conflicting interests at the regional, national, and international scales. Due to tensions between different levels of state authorities, China’s policies toward migrants from Africa are marked by sporadic shifts between recording, nonrecording, and derecording, which contribute to the illegibility of issues of immigration in state bureaucracy.

Based on archival research and multi-sited fieldwork among Chinese and migrants from Africa in Guangzhou, Yiwu (China), and Lagos (Nigeria), this research explores the contradictions and unevenness in the racialization of black African identity in South China. I argue that racism against black Africans in Guangzhou needs to be contextualized within larger contexts such as the rise of China as a global economic power, its changing relations with Africa under the Mao and post-Mao regimes, the intersection of internal and international migration in global cities such as Guangzhou, and the persistent influence of Western racial ideology in popular media.

This paper seeks to reflect upon China’s “African Policy” from the perspective of both inbound and outbound migration. In particular, it offers an overview of contemporary narratives via academic literature pieces, coupled with the results of ongoing field research conducted since 2012. It addresses such issues – still under- researched – as African student mobility to China, yet another direct consequence of an accentuated and complex policy towards the African continent. All will be looked at finally through the lens of the ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic, which has brought up a possible ‘crack’ in the firm collaborative framework in the form of several atrocities against African migrants in Chinese cities.

African migrants in Hong Kong and the rest of Greater China are often confronted with numerous social and economic constraints. Notwithstanding, extant studies have not adequately examined how these challenges affect the psychological wellbeing of Hong Kong's African economic migrants specifically. Using a qualitative research design underpinned by the concept of diaspora space, this article discusses the social aspects of psychological wellbeing among African economic migrants in Hong Kong. Specifically, it shows how the attitudes of local Hong Kongers (本 地人) towards African economic migrants affect the psychological distress of the African migrants. The locals' attitudes influenced the Africans' psychological distress in three non-exclusive ways, namely confusion of personal and social identity (identity as black people); perceived discrimination; and difficulty in forming lasting relationships with the locals. The findings are discussed within the broader discourse of diasporic migration and wellbeing.

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This article looks at the livelihoods and lives of African traders coming to Hong Kong and Guangzhou. These traders are practising “low-end globalization”, involving small amounts of capital, and semilegal or illegal transactions under the radar of the law. The article first considers who these traders are, portraying them as, typically, members of the upper crust of their home societies. It then considers these traders in Chungking Mansions, Hong Kong, a building that is an entrepôt between China and the developing world. Finally, it looks at traders’ livelihoods and lives in Guangzhou, South China, and traders’ efforts to succeed in mainland China. The article argues that one essential economic role China plays today is in manufacturing the cheap, sometimes counterfeit goods that enable Africa and other developing-world regions to experience globalization; the African traders who come to China help make this possible.

This short essay discusses how Covid-19 control over black Africans in Guangzhou in April 2020 (the Guangzhou incident) tells a story of deepened cleavages in China–Africa friendship politics. It argues that despite the political and diplomatic significance of the “friendship” ideology, the Guangzhou event manifests two kinds of its internal cleavages: one lies in how to deal with the immigration issue of Africans in China as a derivative of friend- based hospitality, and the other lies in how to define and position the issue of racial identity, as a way of upholding the social infrastructure of this political ideology.

This article aims at setting out a broader context for the debates and discussions on welfare transformations driven by rapid global challenges and restructuring. Confronted with challenges resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, governments and societies across the globe must rethink and reimagine their social welfare approaches to make them appropriate and effective to manage the risks and crises. The papers in this special issue address three major themes: 1) democratisation and changing welfare regimes / social policy provision; 2) reflections of social service delivery; 3) rethinking state-market-society relationships when managing welfare needs.

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 book 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 volume 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.

n this article, we reflect on critical questions relating to the future of African migration to China in the post-COVID-19 world at the backdrop of the mistreatment many Africans received as part of the pandemic control in China. These questions include: Is this the end of African migration to China as we know it? Will COVID-19 funda- mentally change how we think about migration, mobility and well- being in the People’s Republic of China (PRC)? What will be the effect of the post-COVID-19 regime on the social identity and well- being of the African diaspora in Guangzhou and other Chinese cities?

Course Description: Discussions of African development in the postcolonial world have long been dominated by the dual protagonists of the "West" and Africa. Since the turn of the 21 st century, China's intensive engagement in Africa and its effects have come under local and global scrutiny. Chinese investment, development and educational projects in Africa carry associations with distinctive visions of modernity and global connectedness, some of which are clearly understood as alternatives to European visions of the same. Using ethnographic examples from various countries on the African continent and in the western Indian Ocean, this course takes an anthropological approach to critically examine the multifarious effects of Chinese-led projects in Africa. It will not only provide a cultural contour of contemporary Chinese society, but also offer interesting glimpses of the societies of various African countries that are gradually adapting to, and sometimes resisting the intensifying influence of the Chinese presence. The course will include weekly lectures and discussions, during which we will explore together topics including but not limited to: 1) how China and Africa are two historically interconnected regions and how their roles have changed in the global world order since colonial times; 2) how global flows of people, capital and commodities have added new meanings of "being Chinese" in Africa; 3) how Chinese-led development projects are similar to and different from counterpart Western-led projects; 4) how frictions in China-Africa encounters take place in networks of power and privilege in relation to factors such as race, gender, and social economic background; etc. Course evaluation includes weekly class participation, reading quizzes, a research paper, and a final exam.