Description
Book SynopsisThis book offers in-depth accounts of encounters between Chinese and African social and economic actors that have been increasing rapidly since the early 2000s. With a clear focus on social changes, be it quotidian behaviour or specific practices, the authors employ multi-disciplinary approaches in analysing the various impacts that the intensifying interaction between Chinese and Africans in their roles as ethnic and cultural others, entrepreneurial migrants, traders, employers, employees etc. have on local developments and transformations within the host societies, be they on the African continent or in China. The dynamics of social change addressed in case studies cover processes of social mobility through migration, adaptation of business practices, changing social norms, consumption patterns, labour relations and mutual perceptions, cultural brokerage, exclusion and inclusion, gendered experiences, and powerful imaginations of China. Contributors are Karsten Giese, Guive Khan Mohammad, Katy Lam, Ben Lampert, Kelly Si Miao Liang, Laurence Marfaing, Gordon Mathews, Giles Mohan, Amy Niang, Yoon Jung Park, Alena Thiel, Naima Topkiran.
Table of ContentsContents Acknowledgements List of Contributors 1 Introduction: From Rejection to Social Change Karsten Giese, Laurence Marfaing and Alena Thiel Part 1: Others in Distant Places: Opportunities for Social Mobility 2 Social Mobility of Chinese Migrants in Ghana: The Making of Chinese Entrepreneurs Katy N. Lam 3 The Impact of Migration of the Chinese Women in Niamey on Gender and Family Relations Naima Topkiran 4 African Cultural Brokers in South China Gordon Mathews 5 Early Chinese Migrants in Sub-Saharan Africa: Contract Labourers and Traders Yoon Jung Park Part 2: Encounters with the Other, Stimuli for Social Change 6 Grassroots Social Change Triggered by Africa-China Encounters in Urban China Kelly Si Miao Liang 7 Business Partners and Employers: Chinese Traders as Facilitators of Grassroots Social Innovation in West Africa Karsten Giese 8 A Transformative Presence? Chinese Migrants as Agents of Change in Ghana and Nigeria Ben Lampert and Giles Mohan 9 The Chinese Factor in Senegal: Changing Entrepreneurial Dynamics, and Socio-Economic Restructuring Amy Niang Part 3: The Products of Others: ‘Made in China’ as Imaginary and Opportunity 10 This “Made in China” that Gets Africa Moving: Chinese Motorcycles and Entrepreneurship in Burkina Faso Guive Khan-Mohammad 11 “Made in China” and the African “China Dream”: An Alternative to the West? Laurence Marfaing 12 Cheat Me in the Price, but Not in the Goods: Negotiating Imaginaries of Authenticity in Accra’s China Trade Alena Thiel Index
