ethnic enclaves of transnational migrants in guangzhou ——a case study of xiaobei
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Ethnic enclaves of Transnational Migrants in Guangzhou ——A case study of Xiaobei. Dr. Zhigang Li Associate Professor Centre for Urban and Regional Studies Sun Yat-sen University Guangzhou, China. Outline. 1.Globalizing urban China and new enclaves - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
Ethnic enclaves of Transnational Ethnic enclaves of Transnational Migrants in GuangzhouMigrants in Guangzhou
——A case study of Xiaobei——A case study of Xiaobei
Dr. Zhigang LiAssociate Professor
Centre for Urban and Regional StudiesSun Yat-sen University
Guangzhou, China
Outline1.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
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－）
Ethnic enclaves + China
• Beijing, Wangjing• Shanghai, Gubei and Huam
u• Qingdao, Chengyang• Shenyang, Ta’xi• Yiwu, ‘Arabic street’• Dongguan, HongKongese C
ommunity• …
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.
‘…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)
Question
What is the implication of globalization upon sociospatial restructuring of post-reform Chinese cities?
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)
• 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
• 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).
• 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).
Transnational migrants and their enclaves in Guangzhou
• Guangzhou: a market city
• Guangzhou’s five enclaves
• Xiaobei, an enclave of African traders
0100200300400500600700800900
100011001200130014001500
2000 2001 2002 2003 2004
Thousands
Asi a Europe Ameri ca Oceani a Af ri ca Others
Figure 3 Foreigners staying overnight in Guangzhou, 2000-2005
(Unit 1,000 persons/times)
• Sanyuan li
• Huanshi dong
• Tianhe bei
• Er’sha Island
• Dashi
Figure 4 Immigrants accumulation sites in Guangzhou
Five sites
The survey
• 2006,Questionnaire: 80(43), 40(35)
• 2007, Semi-structured interview: 46
Tab 1 Means and Standard Devi ati ons of vari abl es of the sampl es
Sample Variables Means t sig Max Min SD
Age 32.30 32.32 0.00 44.00 21.00 6.49 Education 2.44 16.29 0.00 4.00 1.00 0.98 Gender（M＝1，F＝2） 1.00 32.64 0.00 1.00 1.00 0.00 Employment 1.50 9.22 0.00 5.00 1.00 1.07 The year of the first time
came to Guangzhou 2.00 - - 2.00 2.00 0.00
Times came to Guangzhou 1.55 18.23 0.00 3.00 1.00 0.55
African
traders
(N=43)
Years stayed in Guangzhou 1.41 16.57 0.00 3.00 1.00 0.54 Age 26.94 24.79 0.00 40.00 18.00 6.43 Gender (M＝1，F＝2） 1.66 20.36 0.00 2.00 1.00 0.48
Local
residents
(N＝35) Employment 2.86 9.47 0.00 5.00 1.00 1.79
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
What kinds of business?
• Salesman (行商－ Xingshang) (Monthly, yearly)
• Tradesman (坐贾 -Zuogu) (500, Cargo)
‘They sell everything’
‘Shoes, clothes, cell-phones, MP3, from toothpick to motorcycle’
However…
‘…They don’t even have 100 dollars in their pockets, and could hardly pay for bills of hotels in the first few days when arrived in Guangzhou…’(Interviewee No. 22). ‘…Unlike those who have money for two-weeks in their pocket, we Africans start from nothing…In order to have the money for meals tomorrow, we have to work immediately when we arrived in Guangzhou…’ (Interviewee No. 25).
So, Africans immigrants VS Sichuan migrants
Segregation?‘…I like Guangzhou. It is very free here. In Europe, people always consider Africans to be poor and asking for help, while people here do not. Respect we get here and people treat us just as businessmen, without any prejudice’ (Interviewee No.27).
Table 1: Evaluation of Xiaobei’s Blacks towards the local society
Attitudes of local residents to you Communication with local residents
Sample % Sample % Very good 3 7.00% Often 1 2.30% Good 5 11.60% Sometimes 7 16.30% OK 28 65.20% Rarely 29 67.40% Not good 7 16.20% Never 6 14.00%
Whether you can stay with local residents harmoniously
Would you like to live with Chinese in the same community
Sample % Sample % Yes 17 39.50% Yes 13 30.20% No 16 37.20% No 30 69.80% No comment 10 23.30%
Local responses
‘…It makes Xiaobei nearly a pure Blacks area…’. The manager of Tianxiu Building said, ‘…for the sake of business interests, we do not mind the Blacks to do business and live here; However, the high mobility of the Blacks, coupled with the language barriers, has created difficulties for our management…especially, some Blacks are often linked to rent evasion…’ (Manager, Tianxiu Building). ‘…The blacks are hard to manage…their hygiene condition is poor…’ (Manager, Yidong Building).
Why Guangzhou
• Rather than Shanghai, Beijing…?
• Wholesale Market
• Muslim history
• Regional context
• Entrepreneurial cultural
• Climate and weather
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
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.
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
Future research
• Social networks of transnational African traders
• The links between Guangzhou, Yiwu and Dubai in terms of global trading
