“Clean, safe and orderly”: Migrants, race and city image in global Guangzhou

Abstract

This paper examines an urban renewal project in Xiaobei, a neighborhood that has become a gathering place for African traders in the Chinese city of Guangzhou. Drawing on documentary analysis, interviews and site visits, the paper argues that, while there is a racial element to the project, we should be careful about ascribing it solely to anti-black racism. The project is as much characterized by pejorative discourses about internal migrants as it is about Africans. Moreover, the project is not unique to Xiaobei, and should also be understood in the context of Guangzhou’s efforts to become a competitive “global” city.

IJSD Volume 9 2018 Screening the Skin: Issues of Race and Nation in Screendance Full Issue

“…However, as Rich contends, "in the absence of choice, women will remain dependent upon the chance or luck of particular relationships and will have no collective power to determine the meaning and place of sexuality in their lives." 25 As seen throughout the film but thoughtfully rendered in this particular dance scene, these two characters accept one another as they are. The dance is uneven and filled with moments embodying "failures" as well as victories, which more closely resembles the reality for two characters suffering from and experiencing non-normative lives (and relationships) due to their psychological conditions.…”

“…Abraham's embodied manifestations on screen and ghostly ethereal hovering through his disappearances and reappearances visualize Jennifer Deger's "shimmering" embodiment that refers to the relationship between the viewer and the screen as a "dynamic and transformative space of betweenness." 25 Abraham suggests and inhabits that between space both on and beyond the screen. Like the seductive visual relationship in I am Sold, Abraham's kinetic visual calling up and habitation of the between space redoubles the film's pull on the viewer towards its historical affective intervention.…”

“…24 Henriques, Sonic Bodies, preamble. 25 Henriques, "The Vibrations of Affect," 69. 26 Henriques, "Rythmic Bodies," 83.…”

“…24 The generic components or aesthetic of the content creator don't often change in these videos; brands choose specific YouTubers because they like their videos and think the product would fit well with the channel's audience. 25 Sponsored campaigns place more agency with more and different people than topdown approaches. In this instance, #ICAN is the campaign, but the prompt is specified by Eastwood through the choreography, setting, styling, and videographic style.…”

“…Such technologies reveal key similarities with the early emergence of popular entertainment in the nineteenth century due to their heightened use of "form, style, surface, artifice, spectacle and sensation," and a shared emphasis on arresting the senses through a fusion of technique and skill with mediated technologies of representation. 25 In her study of the decorative image, Rosalind Galt challenges historical logocentric understandings of spectacle and narrative, and argues that the increased emphasis on the surface image of the screen through performances of excess is also emblematic of the narrative and politics of the context of the screened subject. 26 In a film context, Galt describes these heightened aesthetics as including "deep colors [sic], arabesque camera movement, detailed mise-en-scène [the design aspects of the film], and an emphasis on cinematographic surface."…”