African Transnational Mobility in China: Africans on the Move
China as a land of opportunitiesWhy Guangzhou?: an historic trading centrePrevious African histories in China: diplomacy through educationThe Africa-China narrativeAcademic engagements and methodological challengesMethodological challengesThe structure of the bookA note on methodology: the cultural politics of ethnographyReferencesThe emergence of the ‘Chocolate City’: Multiethnic spaces, catering networks, and articulated subeconomiesLooking for the ‘Chocolate City’The city as a trade fair: urban transformations and foreign arrivalWelcome Aboard!Counting the numbers: the early population surveysThe French connection: Dengfeng VillageChina’s internal migrants: the ‘others’ on the moveDebunking the ‘Chocolate City’ narrative: multiethnic assemblages in a Chinese villageVantage point: Dengfeng-XiaobeiCatering networks and articulated subeconomiesThe ‘ethnic enclave’ vs. the ‘African community’: modalities of sociospatial imaginationThe ‘ethnic enclave’ = the ‘Chocolate City’The ‘African community’ and ‘bridge theory’Interconnected multiethnic archipelagos?NotesReferencesThe materialities of transnational movement: Food, hair, fashion, movies, and other ‘things’Translocal image-inations‘Things in formation’: gatherings of people and practices‘Africa fish’ and the emergence of transnational foodscapesThe translocal story of tilapia: from Lake Victoria to the Pearl RiverThe transnational hair routeFashionThe DVD trade: transnational (re)productionLittle things, ‘major’ transformations?NoteReferencesPlacemaking in Guangzhou: Emplacement, transiency, and the ‘politics’ of solidaritySaturday morning footballPlacemaking and mobility: at ‘home’ in Guangzhou?Emplacement within transiency: African ‘immigrants’ in Guangzhou?Multiple emplacementsEmplacement within transiencyPrecarity and the strengthening of solidarity networksStructuring solidarity through footballDangerous entrapmentsStructural discrimination and racism‘Precarious homing’, or the difficult task of feeling at ‘home’ in GuangzhouCommunity offices as sites of alternative citizenship: African ‘politics’ in GuangzhouNigerian ‘wars’ in Guangzhou and the role of the ‘peacemakers’‘We Africans deserve the treatment we get’‘Same skin, but not the same habits’Citizenship on the move‘China is a difficult place’: emplacing people on the move in Southern ChinaTransient, mobile homesNotesReferencesMaking it on the move: Landscapes of aspiration in Guangzhou’s African music sceneExploring Guangzhou’s nightlifeLandscapes of aspiration: hope, desire, and possibilityChina as a platform: spaces of mobility and transnational possibilities in Guangzhou’s music sceneUnder a pagoda on the banks of the Pearl River: meeting OchaA singer is a singer is a singer: sailing away to China‘I Feel Good’: becoming a central figure in the music sceneAn apparent breakthroughAspirations and family makingMultitasking while on the move: serious entrepreneurialismA trip to Panyu: meeting DoTransnational (re)productionBecoming a musician (and other things) in China: meeting IvooThe paradox of aspirational mobilities: to move or not to moveChina as ‘a land of hope’ and ‘the future’NotesReferencesTransnational flows: Gendered and racialised imaginaries of Africans in GuangzhouFascination over African presenceWishing or washing blackness away?Clichés in advertising historyMultiple readings and (the lack of) contextualisation‘Blackface’ and black faces in China: media, technology, and powerRacism and ignoranceThe Guangzhou incident: persecutions, forced evictions, and quarantinesGovernmental responses: #ChinaMustExplain‘Anti-African’ sentiments in the era of ‘racial nationalism’?Making sense of the increase in ‘racial incidents’ReferencesEmbedded transnationality: Problematic transnational mobilities, the burden of methodological nationalismProducing ‘immigrants’, imposing labelsAprioristic versus grounded approachesAfrican mobilities in transformationAfrica as a continent ‘on the move’Aspirational mobilities and entrepreneurial drivesTransnational journeys as processes of becomingMigration and the burden of methodological nationalism(dis)Locating individuals ‘on the move’ within the logics of migration studiesGrounding the transnational: multiple forms of mobility and mobility of formsTransnationalism and the condition of transnationalityThe paradigm of transnational migrationForms of mobility/mobility of formsNoteReferencesPostscript: African transnational mobility in post-COVID-19 pandemic GuangzhouAppendix: Interviews
