Description
Book SynopsisMere decades ago, the population of Guangzhou was almost wholly Chinese. Today, it is a truly global city, a place where people from around the world go to make new lives, find themselves, or further their careers. A large number of those migrants are small-scale traders from Africa who deal in Chinese goods often knock-offs or copies of high-end branded items to send back to their home countries. In The World in Guangzhou, Gordon Mathews explores the question of how the city became such a center of low-end globalization and shows what we can learn from that experience similar transformations elsewhere in the world. Through detailed ethnographic portraits, Mathews reveals a world of globalization based on informality, reputation, and trust rather than on formal contracts. How, he asks, can such informal relationships emerge between two groups Chinese and Sub-Saharan Africans that don't share a common language, culture, or religion? And what happens when Africans move beyond their statu
