Reconstructing Blackness in Grassroots Interactions Between Chinese and Africans in Guangzhou

Lan, Shanshan

doi:10.1353/anq.2019.0023

Cited by 17 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…Yet parallel precarities and mutual exposure do not beget much relational reconciliation, even as they produce reciprocal familiarity like that also seen in African and Chinese domestic migrant encounters in Guangzhou (Lan 2019).…”

Section: F R O N T I E R a N T A G O N I S T Smentioning

confidence: 95%

“…Such work would benefit from consideration of the role that the Sino-U.S. relationship plays in delineating how notions of "culture" are constructed on each side, all the more so at this time of growing trans-Pacific tension. In a different context, while activity at the state scale implicitly undergirds many relationships among Chinese and local co-workers in Zambia (Chang 2013), and generalized Sino-African interactions in Guangzhou (Lan 2019), work on these situations has not yet explored the bidirectional relationship between everyday ties and shifting official Sino-African Friendships. Janny Chang's (2013: 38) insights into how Chinese and Zambian colleagues forge relationships that appear to blend each side's approach to instrument and affect would be enriched further through a focus on how difference itself is managed, not least since these interactions occur at a PRC state-owned enterprise.…”

Section: Soviet Friendship Against the Statementioning

confidence: 99%

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Differences over Difference: Sino-Russian Friendship at Interstate and Interpersonal Scales

Pulford¹

2021

Comp Stud Soc Hist

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Relations between states are usually framed in human terms, from partners to rivals, enemies or allies, polities and persons appear to engage in cognate relationships. Yet whether or not official ties and relationships among people from those states actually correspond remains less clear. “Friendship,” a term first applied to states in eighteenth-century Europe and mobilized in the (post)socialist world since the 1930s, articulates with particular clarity both the promise and the limitations of harmonized personal and state ties. Understandings of friendship vary interculturally, and invocations of state-state friendship may be accompanied by a distinct lack of amity among populations. Such is the case between China and Russia today, and this situation therefore raises wider questions over how we should understand interstate and interpersonal relationships together. Existing social scientific work has generally failed to locate either the everyday in the international or the international in the everyday. Focusing on both Chinese and Russian approaches to daily interactions in a border town and the official Sino-Russian Friendship, I thus suggest a new scalar approach. Applying this to the Sino-Russian case in turn reveals how specific contours of “difference” form a pivot around which relationships at both scales operate. This study thus offers both comparison between Chinese and Russian friendships, and a lens for wider comparative work in a global era of shifting geopolitics and cross-border encounters.

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Section: F R O N T I E R a N T A G O N I S T Smentioning

confidence: 95%

Section: Soviet Friendship Against the Statementioning

confidence: 99%

Differences over Difference: Sino-Russian Friendship at Interstate and Interpersonal Scales

Pulford¹

2021

Comp Stud Soc Hist

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“…Beyond the structural exclusion that internal Chinese migrants and African migrants face, some recent studies are focusing on daily-life interactions between African migrants and Chinese host communities. In Guangzhou, Lan (2019) finds that "in addition to the language barrier, cultural misunderstandings and racialized stereotypes may also play important roles in impacting grassroots Chinese/African business interactions" (Lan 2019, 484; see also Kelly Liang and Le Billon 2020). A recent national survey of African migrants in China shows that they have a lower quality of life than has the general public in China (Xiong et al 2021).…”

Section: African Migrants In Chinamentioning

confidence: 99%

Africa-China Knowledge Networks: State of the Field

Bolin¹,

Carayannis²,

Niewenhuis³

et al. 2022

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The Social Science Research Council (SSRC) is an independent, international, nonprofit organization founded in 1923. It fosters innovative research, nurtures new generations of social scientists, deepens how inquiry is practiced within and across disciplines, and mobilizes necessary knowledge on important public issues. For nearly 100 years the SSRC has coordinated the research, policy, and philanthropic communities in the pursuit of evidence-based policies to promote human well-being, emerging as both a pivotal force in the academy and a respected contributor to the public good. The SSRC is guided by the belief that justice, prosperity, and democracy all require better understanding of complex social, cultural, economic, and political processes. We work with practitioners, policymakers, and academic researchers in the social sciences, natural sciences, humanities, and related professions. We build interdisciplinary and international networks, working with partners around the world to link research to practice and policy, strengthen individual and institutional capacities for learning, and enhance public access to information.

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“…Rather than based on pre-existing racial stereotypes, the construction of blackness and the racial category of African traders needs to be contextualised within the unequal economic and geopolitical relations between China and Africa, the intersection of internal and international migration, and the media construction of African people as sexually aggressive and cultural threatening (Lan 2016). Interestingly, domestic Chinese migrant workers and African traders would stereotype and racialise each other, but such constructions are often fluid, decentred and beyond rigid binaries (Lan 2019). For local residents, while negative perceptions about African people are discernibly played out, they are also open to economic transactions and social interactions with African people.…”

Section: Mobility Identity and Migrants' Everyday Practicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

New theoretical dialogues on migration in China: introduction to the special issue

Hong

Qian

2020

Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies

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This special issue emerges from the observation that the current literatures on migration in China are constrained by a series of shortfalls, including a relative topical homogeneity centred on domestic labour migration, relatively narrowly conceived and institutionalist conceptions of migration and migrants, and a lack of engagement with theoretical models and paradigms in the broad discipline of migration studies. Assembling eight finegrained research papers engaging with a broad variety of migratory trajectories and experiences, this special issues addresses these shortfalls by: (1) investigating diverse forms of domestic and transnational migration in and to China; (2) problematising and innovating well-established analytical tools and categories in the studies on migration in China; and (3) underscoring the centrality of identity, subjectivity and everyday experiences to theoretical understandings of migration in China. Claims to such contributions are based on a concise but pointed review of the status quo of knowledge on migration in and to China.

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Reconstructing Blackness in Grassroots Interactions Between Chinese and Africans in Guangzhou

Cited by 17 publications

References 47 publications

Differences over Difference: Sino-Russian Friendship at Interstate and Interpersonal Scales

Differences over Difference: Sino-Russian Friendship at Interstate and Interpersonal Scales

Africa-China Knowledge Networks: State of the Field

New theoretical dialogues on migration in China: introduction to the special issue

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