Pandemics and Management of “Dangerous Communities”: Ebola, COVID-19, and Africans in China

Abstract

How do we unpack and make sense of anti-African/Black sentiments in the pandemic control and mitigation practices in China? This article responds to the question by drawing a parallel between the experiences of Africans in China during the Ebola virus disease and COVID-19 outbreaks. Focusing specifically on Nigerians as a subsection of the African community in Guangzhou City, China, it explores how the COVID-19-inspired discrimination against Africans reflects much of the experiences of Africans in China during the Ebola crisis of 2014. The article combines sixteen “Ebola experience” data points, obtained from Nigerians in Guangzhou in 2017, with four COVID-19 experience virtual interviews, media reports, and social media archive and netnographic analysis covering April to June 2020. The experiences of Africans in Guangzhou in the early months of the COVID-19 outbreak reflect a patterned response to Africans and Blackness in the context of pandemic in China. The article contributes to the literature by examining the question of racial discrimination and the construction of African immigrant community in China as dangerous within the new geography of Afro-mobilities in East Asia.

如何解读中国流行病控制和缓解行动中的反非裔黑人情绪？通过对比COVID-19和埃博拉病毒爆发期间在华非洲人的经历, 本文对此进行了回应。本文关注中国广州市非洲社区的尼日利亚人, 探讨了COVID-19引发的歧视非洲人如何反映2014年埃博拉危机期间在华非洲人的许多经历。本文结合16个于2017年获取的广州尼日利亚人埃博拉数据点, 以及4个关于COVID-19经历（2020年4月至6月）的在线采访、媒体报道、社交媒体档案和网络民族志分析。广州非洲人在COVID-19早期阶段的经历, 反映了流行病期间中国对非洲人和黑人的模式化反应。在非裔流动性的新东亚地理环境下, 本文研究了种族歧视问题, 以及在中国建立非洲移民社区的危险性。

¿Cómo descifrar y dar sentido a sentimientos antiafricanos/negros dentro de las prácticas de control y mitigación de la pandemia en China? Este artículo da respuesta al interrogante, trazando un paralelismo entre las experiencias de los africanos en China durante los brotes de los virus de ébola y del COVID-19. Centrándose específicamente en los nigerianos, como una subsección de la comunidad africana en la ciudad de Guangzhou, China, el artículo explora cómo la discriminación inspirada por el COVI-19 contra los africanos refleja en gran medida las experiencias de los africanos en aquel país durante la crisis del ébola del 2014. El artículo combina dieciséis puntos de datos de la “experiencia del ébola”, obtenidos de los nigerianos en Guangzhou en 2017, con cuatro entrevistas virtuales sobre la experiencia del COVID-19, informes de los medios y análisis de archivos y etnografía de las redes sociales, que se extienden de abril a junio de 2020. Las experiencias de los africanos en Guangzhou durante los meses del brote inicial del COVID-19 reflejan una respuesta común a los africanos y a la negritud en el contexto pandémico chino. El artículo contribuye a la literatura examinando el asunto de la discriminación racial y la construcción de la comunidad de inmigrantes africanos en China, como algo peligroso dentro de la nueva geografía de las afro-movilidades del Asia Oriental.

Key Words:

• Africa–China relations
• Africans in China
• Blackness
• othering
• race

关键词:

• 中非关系
• 在华非洲人
• 黑人
• 外人
• 种族。

Palabras clave:

• africanos en China
• negritud
• otredad
• raza
• relaciones afro-chinas.

Acknowledgments

I thank the reviewers for their critical and constructive comments and patience throughout the review process. I also thank the Focus Section Guest Editor, Guo Chen, and Heidi Østbø Haugen for the encouragement received.

Notes

1 I obtained some of the videos, about thirty-three clips, from a Nigerian community leader and another Nigerian resident in Guangzhou in April 2020.

2 Some of the videos were fact-checked in a story published in the Washington Post on 18 June 2020 (see Cahlan and Lee 2020). Note, however, that the media organization misnamed the Nigerian diplomat who protested publicly in Guangzhou as Anozie Madaubuchi Cyril instead of Razaq Lawal, the actual diplomat in the video.

3 “Misunderstanding” has been used a lot as an explanation for the racial discrimination that Africans experience in Chinese society even though the concept has neither been defined nor clearly understood (see “China Hails Brotherly Africa Relations” 2016; Afreekahna 2020; Xie 2021).

4 Although I reached out to more Nigerians in the city for interviews, most were concerned for their safety and could not participate in the research.

5 This is not his real name. All other names used in the article are pseudonyms except for the name of the ex-president of the Nigerian community in China, Emma Ojukwu.

6 Circulated conversation between a Guangzhou city official and Emma Ojukwu, ex-president of the Nigerian community in China; Emma passed away on 4 February 2021 in Guangzhou.

7 He did not end up paying after he left the quarantine hotel. He feared, however, that he might still be contacted to pay for his quarantine at a later date.

Additional information

Funding

The article draws on a 2017 research project supported by the Consortium for Advanced Research Training in Africa (CARTA), the African Humanities Program (Dissertation Completion Fellowship), the Small Grants for Thesis Writing awarded by the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA), and the Postgraduate School College, University of Ibadan, Nigeria, and a 2020–2021 research project conducted as a Fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS)/African Humanities Program (AHP) Postdoctoral Fellowship.

Notes on contributors

Kudus Oluwatoyin Adebayo

KUDUS OLUWATOYIN ADEBAYO is a Research Fellow in the Diaspora and Transnational Studies Program, Institute of African Studies, University of Ibadan, Nigeria, and a Postdoctoral Fellow of the ARUA/Carnegie Early Career Fellowship in the Centre of Excellence for Migration and Mobility, African Centre for Migration & Society, University of The Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, Gauteng Province 2050, South Africa. E-mail: [email protected]. His research interests include Africa–China migrations, settlement and belonging, migration health, urban transformations, and knowledge production.