African migrants in China: space, race and embodied encounters in Guangzhou, China

ABSTRACT

This paper examines ‘intimate geographies’ of everyday social encounters between African migrants and Chinese residents in Guangzhou, China. Based on interviews in an urban area represented as an ‘African enclave’, we document some of the banal, everyday sensory and corporeal encounters relating to housing, mobility, food, gender and trade. We suggest that African migration does not easily constitute an economic and cultural ‘bridge’ facilitating comprehension and appreciation between ordinary Chinese and Africans. Rather, we find racialized ‘Othering’ of African migrants to be a prevalent feature of encounters. We also find that African migrants are not voiceless and passive but proactive in questioning these views and practices, and in seeking to expand and deepen economic and broader social ties. These findings point to the importance of sensory perceptions and corporeal practices shaping racialization in many spheres of life, but do not preclude some forms of cultural bridging and positive interactions, demonstrating the ambivalences of embodied encounters in a globalizing city.

Cet article examine « les géographies intimes » de rencontres sociales quotidiennes entre les migrants africains et les résidents chinois de Guangzhou en Chine. A partir d’entretiens dans des zones urbaines représentées comme une « enclave africaine », nous récoltons des données sur les rencontres sensorielles et corporelles banales et quotidiennes en rapport avec le logement, la mobilité, la nourriture, le genre et le commerce. Nous suggérons que la migration africaine ne constitue pas aisément un « pont » économique et culturel qui facilite la compréhension et l’appréciation entre les Chinois et les Africains ordinaires. Plutôt, nous trouvons que le fait de rendre les migrants africains « autre » de manière racialisée est un trait dominant des rencontres. Nous trouvons aussi que les migrants africains ne sont pas sans voix ni passifs mais proactifs dans le questionnement de ces vues et de ces pratiques ainsi que dans la démarche d’expansion et d’approfondissement des liens économiques et sociaux plus larges. Ces résultats démontrent l’importance des perceptions sensorielles et des pratiques corporelles qui forment la racialisation dans de nombreuses sphères de la vie mais n’excluent pas certaines formes de pont culturel et d’interactions positives, attestant des ambivalences des rencontres incarnées dans une grande ville de l’ère de la mondialisation.

Este documento examina las ‘geografías íntimas’ de encuentros sociales cotidianos entre migrantes africanos y residentes chinos en Cantón, China. Basado en entrevistas en un área urbana representada como un ‘enclave africano’, se documentan algunos de los encuentros sensoriales y corpóreos cotidianos y banales relacionados con la vivienda, la movilidad, la comida, el género y el comercio. Se sugiere que la migración africana no constituye fácilmente un ‘puente’ económico y cultural que facilite la comprensión y el aprecio entre los chinos y los africanos comunes. Por el contrario, se considera que la ‘otredad’ racializada de los migrantes africanos es una característica prevalente en los encuentros. También se observa que los migrantes africanos no son personas sin voz y pasivas, sino proactivas al cuestionar estos puntos de vista y prácticas, y al tratar de ampliar y profundizar los lazos económicos y sociales más amplios. Estos hallazgos apuntan a la importancia de las percepciones sensoriales y las prácticas corpóreas que configuran la racialización en muchas esferas de la vida, pero que no excluyen algunas formas de puentes culturales e interacciones positivas, lo que demuestra las ambivalencias de los encuentros corporales en una ciudad en proceso de globalización.

KEYWORDS:

• Africa
• China
• contact zone
• migration
• racialization

MOTS CLÉS:

• Afrique
• Chine
• zone de contact
• migration
• racialisation

PALABRAS CLAVE:

• África
• China
• zona de contacto
• migración
• racialización

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. As Mawdsley (2008) implies, there is a risk of orientalism in the readiness to see a straightforward story of Chinese anti-black racism that can be told without a sense of relationship with narratives of western anti-black (and indeed anti-Chinese) racism. We thank one of this paper’s referees for this important remark.

2. See Bodomo (2008), (2010), (2012), Bork‐Hüffer et al. (2016), Haugen (2012), Lan (2017), Le Bail (2009), Li et al. (2009), Lyons and Brown (2010), Mathews and Yang (2012), Müller and Wehrhahn (2013) and Yang (2011).

3. Leitner (2012: 830) uses the relatively parallel concept of ‘spaces of encounters’, and places an emphasis on their ability to enact ‘a politics of belonging; that is, negotiations and power struggles over boundaries that define who belongs to a particular local and national community and place and who does not. This politics of belonging is simultaneously a politics about cultural and racial boundaries, boundaries of place, and entitlements to economic and political resources’.

4. Interviews were conducted by the first author, a young female Sino-Canadian [additional positionality information to be included following the review process]. The study was subject to a Canadian Tri-Council ethics review.

5. Given the urban focus of our subject and study, we use the term ‘contact zone’ (see below) to nuance the application of concepts of ethnic ‘ghettos’ and urban ‘enclaves’ and to decipher more fluid relationships between corporeal encounters, racial stigmatization and spatial strategies of everyday live in the city than these two concepts would entail. Wacquant’s (2005) conceptualization of the ghetto is in part applicable in Sino-African contact zones in Guangzhou – as we find their African migrant population stigmatized, economically integrated and profited, and (partly) ruled by parallel institutions – but we also observe relations departing from those associated with both ‘ghettos’ and ‘ethnic enclaves’ (see Peach, 2005).

6. Several studies have also demonstrated patterns of (quasi) ‘racialization’ and Othering within China and the dominant Han ethnic group. See, for example, Lowe and Tsang (2017) on the case of the racialization of Chinese mainlanders in Hong Kong.

7. Other than the ‘Chocolate City’, these areas with high concentration of African migrants are also referred to as the ‘African Village’, the ‘Mini UN’ and ‘Asia’s Brooklyn’ by the media. In the authors’ own words, racialization was not intended when the tag was coined (Li et al., 2012). The term was repeatedly used by taxi drivers and thus adopted by the journalists eying on its ostensible popularity without noticing the racist tone in both its naming and promulgators. The original quote was from personal communications with Yuan Ding, a PhD student at the University of Kuleuven, who personally interviewed one of the authors of the article, Pan Xiaolin. During fieldwork in 2011 and 2012, it was uncommon for the African informants to be aware of the fact that the place they live was called the ‘Chocolate City’ and even more so for them to have affinity with it.

8. The venue was relocated in 2008. However, the existing African-friendly amenities in the area still render it an attractive option for short stays even among itinerary traders who visit Guangzhou during specific trade fairs.

9. Personal communication, Congolese trader March 2011, and newspapers survey. See also Haugen (2012).

10. As for September 2012, the charismatic provincial governor of Guangdong, Wang Yang, is implementing a series of regulatory measures known as sanda’liangjian, or ‘three fights and two constructions’ aims of which are to combat the attempts to monopolize the market, manufacturing and selling counterfeits, penalize bribery for commercial purposes, enhance credibility of the government and establish mechanisms for market regulation. This policy provides justifications for continued crackdowns in many trading malls in the contact zone while systemizing them under a greater umbrella of establishing trust and moral standards in the market and the society.

11. Hong Kong passed the territory’s first anti-racist law in 2008, but it has been deemed weak (Tharoor, 2008). Some Chinese legal language also exists with regard to race and equality in terms of employment (e.g. Employment Promotion Law from 2008).