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Book Synopsis
Mere 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

World in Guangzhou Africans and Other Foreigners

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A Hardback by Gordon Mathews, Linessa Dan Lin, Yang Yang

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    View other formats and editions of World in Guangzhou Africans and Other Foreigners by Gordon Mathews

    Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
    Publication Date: 16/11/2017
    ISBN13: 9780226506074, 978-0226506074
    ISBN10: 022650607X
    Also in:
    Archaeology

    Description

    Book Synopsis
    Mere 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

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