Ethnic enclaves of Transnational Migrants in Guangzhou

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Ethnic enclaves of Transnational Migrants in
GuangzhouA case study of Xiaobei

• Dr. Zhigang Li
• Associate Professor
• Centre for Urban and Regional Studies
• Sun Yat-sen University
• Guangzhou, China

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Outline

• 1.Globalizing urban China and new enclaves
• 2.Transnational migrants and ethnic enclaves
• 3.An empirical Study Xiaobei, Guangzhou
• Ethnic enclaves of Guangzhou
• African Traders in Xiaobei
• Residential Segregation?
• 4.Discussions and Conclusions

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Chasing the Chinese DreamA Growing Number of the
World's Emigrants Are Heading East, Rather Than
West, in Search of Safety, Tolerance and
OpportunityBy Ariana Eunjung ChaWashington Post
Foreign ServiceSunday, October 21, 2007 A16

• 450,000, Residence permit
• 700, Green cards(2004-)

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Ethnic enclaves China

• Beijing, Wangjing
• Shanghai, Gubei and Huamu
• Qingdao, Chengyang
• Shenyang, Taxi
• Yiwu, Arabic street
• Dongguan, HongKongese Community

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• Wangjing, a large scale commodity housing estate
  of Chaoyang District in Beijing, has become a
  South Korean enclave where above 60,000 South
  Koreans live, making it the largest South Korean
  village in Beijing.

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• Larger and more permanent than those
  frequented by expatriate businessmen on temporary
  assignment, the new enclaves evoke
  pre-revolutionary China, where cities such as
  Shanghai bustled with concessions dominated by
  French, British and Japanese (Cha, 2007)

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Question

• What is the implication of globalization upon
  sociospatial restructuring of post-reform Chinese
  cities?

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Transnational migrants and ethnic enclaves

• transmigrants, transnational social
  field/social space/community, Diaspora (Portes
  1987 1996 ), Globalisation from below (Portes
  1996 Guarnizo and Smith 1998 Schiller and
  Fouron 1998)
• Transnationalism
• the process by which transmigrants, through
  their daily activities, forge and sustain
  multi-stranded social, economic, and political
  relations that link together their societies of
  origin and settlement, and through which they
  create transnational social fields that cross
  national borders (Basch, et al. 1994 Gugler
  2004)

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• The literature of transnational migrants,
  however, preoccupied with migration to the global
  North.
• Especially, though the nations of transitional
  economy embrace the West in the 1990s, while the
  residential control upon foreign migrants is
  loosen, few empirically studies have been
  conducted to look closely at the rising number of
  transnational immigrants

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• In terms of the three forces that shape
  contemporary urban China, i.e. market reform,
  migrants and globalisation (Logan 2001), the
  impact of former two forces have been extensively
  studied, the latter, especially the practical
  undertakers of globalisation, immigrants and
  their implications, has been largely ignored (Wu
  and Webber 2004 Lin and Tse 2005).

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• Rural-urban migrants (Wu, 2000, 2001,2002
  Fan,2001) and their enclaves, such as Zhejiangcun
  (Ma and Xiang 1998) and Chengzongcun (Zhang, Zhao
  et al. 2003) have been extensively studied, less
  is known about the so-called international
  migrants (Guoji yimin).

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Transnational migrants and their enclaves in
Guangzhou

• Guangzhou a market city
• Guangzhous five enclaves
• Xiaobei, an enclave of African traders

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Guangzhou A market of China
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CECF (Chinese Export Commodities Fair)
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Five sites

• Sanyuan li
• Huanshi dong
• Tianhe bei
• Ersha Island
• Dashi

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Xiaobei
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The survey

• 2006,Questionnaire 80(43), 40(35)
• 2007, Semi-structured interview 46

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Who are they?

• Nationality Sub-Saharan Africans
• Profession Traders
• Language French, English, Chinese, Cantonese
• Religions Muslims and Christians
• Capital Rich and poor
• History of relation with China Long and short

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How many?

• 20,000-200,000

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How long?
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What kinds of business?

• Salesman (??-Xingshang) (Monthly, yearly)
• Tradesman (??-Zuogu) (500, Cargo)

They sell everything
Shoes, clothes, cell-phones, MP3, from toothpick
to motorcycle
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• One wife and three children in New York
• 200 containers a year

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However
So, Africans immigrants VS Sichuan migrants
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Segregation?
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Local responses
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Why Guangzhou

• Rather than Shanghai, Beijing?
• Wholesale Market
• Muslim history
• Regional context
• Entrepreneurial cultural
• Climate and weather

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World factory

• Differ to the theory of transnational migrants
  such as the segmented labour market in the US,
  the rising of transnational ethnic enclave in
  Guangzhou is largely attributed to the world
  factory status of the PRD

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Transmigrants

• Transnational migrants in Xiaobei are composed of
  a highly diversified group. Though they mainly
  come from Middle-West Africa, they hold different
  socio-economic background, trading different
  goods, sharing various religions, different
  culture and languages.

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Segregation

• Xiaobei serves as a vital, albeit unorthodox,
  economic institution for the welfare of
  transnational African traders.
• Nevertheless, it is found that some local
  residents, businessmen and property managers have
  begun to take measures resist the newly arrival
  of Blacks. They either remove from Xiaobei, or
  curb the Blacks to move in.
• Add a new dimension of sociospatial segregation
  for urban China, i.e. ethnicity

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Future research

• Social networks of transnational African traders
• The links between Guangzhou, Yiwu and Dubai in
  terms of global trading

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• Thanks