Inter-Asia Cultural Studies

ISSN: 1464-9373 (Print) 1469-8447 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/riac20

Feeling at home in the Chocolate City: an

exploration of place-making practices and
structures of belonging amongst Africans in
Guangzhou
Roberto Castillo
To cite this article: Roberto Castillo (2014) Feeling at home in the Chocolate City: an
exploration of place-making practices and structures of belonging amongst Africans in
Guangzhou, Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, 15:2, 235-257, DOI: 10.1080/14649373.2014.911513
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14649373.2014.911513

Published online: 03 Jul 2014.

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Date: 16 September 2016, At: 00:46

Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, 2014

Vol. 15, No. 2, 235257, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14649373.2014.911513

Feeling at home in the Chocolate City: an exploration of

place-making practices and structures of belonging amongst
Africans in Guangzhou
Roberto CASTILLO

Over the last two decades, the shifts brought about by the emergence of Asia as a key
player in global capitalism have led to countless Africans opting for Asian destinations as part of
their trade and migration strategies. The implications of the constant ebb and flow of African entrepreneurs in Southern China and the transnational trajectories, connections, and practices they
enable have been relatively understudied. This article focuses on place-making practices and structures of belonging surrounding those Africans living in (and circulating through) Guangzhou.
Drawing on my fieldwork, I locate possibilities for place-making and belonging within transnational
multiethnic microcommunities and highlight practices that have emerged from the assembling of
transnational and translocal flows in residential clusters, community organisations, and religious
congregations. I contend that the presence and intermingling of diverse transient subjects (both
African and Chinese) nurtures alternative imaginations of self, place, home, and belonging
that alter extant notions of national and cultural identity, ethnicity, and race in twenty-first
century Asia.

ABSTRACT

KEYWORDS : Africans in Guangzhou, place-making, belonging, transnational, migration

A new land of opportunities
China is the new land of opportunities, I am told by Chuck, a 33-year-old Igbo from Imo in
Nigeria. After attending a Sunday evening Christian Pentecostal congregation, Chuck picks
me up to go to the restaurant he owns in the vast Guangda Clothing Wholesale Market in the
north of Guangzhou. Lost inside this massive compound of warehouses and stores is the
newly opened Guangda African Marketa commercial space allocated by the citys authorities to leaders and representatives of the various African communities.
Chuck first came to China, without any contacts, in 2006; then, after moving back and
forth for two years, made Guangzhou his operating base in 2008. He recalls that, in the beginning, it was not easy. The thing is that there is no real employment in China, here you have
to employ yourself, be creative. After almost five years in the country, Chuck has managed
to become a restaurant owner (Guangda African Restaurant), a trade representative (mediating business deals between Chinese and Africans), and a fashion designer (designing and
manufacturing clothes that he sells in his shops in China and Nigeria), along with actively
participating in the Nigerian community offices activities.
Whilst drinking a beer in his restauranta richly decorated space that juxtaposes
modern design with two gargantuan posters of fauna from the African savannahI muse
that Chuck and I may belong to the same generation of young people from developing
countries that grew up in a world where the possibilities for migration were relatively
rigid. If you needed (or wanted) to go abroad, the North was, almost inevitably, your
only choice. As a middle-class Mexican, I could have journeyed north to seek employment
2014 Taylor & Francis

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Roberto Castillo

in the United States or Canada, or perhaps, with the luck I have had in Asia, been educated
in a university somewhere on the American East Coast. Chuck, on the other hand, could have
gone to Europe, South Africa or, perhaps, the Middle East. Times have changed, however.
Both of us arrived to China in 2006 (without previous knowledge of or connections to the
region) and began juggling a plethora of different visas to manage the then highly erratic
Chinese visa system, whilst trying to generate a measure of stability along with work/
business opportunities. From all appearances, Chucks entrepreneurial prowess (with his restaurant, representation office, fashion shop, and import-export business), clearly exceeds
mineat 33, I am wading through a PhD and living on a scholarship. China, or more specifically what we both knew from international media about Chinas growth/rise, represented a
refreshing (albeit challenging, risky and unstable) opportunity to build our lives in less established/traditional, yet more transnational, ways. Over the last 15 years, the relative relaxation
of foreign entry and settlement in China and the increased accessibility and affordability of
international air travel, have led to waves of foreigners (like Chuck and I) arriving in
search of material and immaterial wellbeing.
Located within the context of the impact of diasporic cultural globalisation in twenty-first
century Asia, this article is an exploration of certain elements that structure the contemporary
presence of Africans in China. Drawing on preliminary findings in my fieldwork, I place particular emphasis on three issues crucial to sense-making in the city: place-making processes
(some of the ways in which Africans intersect with Chinese on a spatial level); structures of
belonging (built through organisations and communities); and strategies for settlement and
mobility (developed to counteract what is perceived as institutional barriers to their presence
in China). In the following pages, I argue that the continued and recurrent presence of Africans in Guangzhou, and their connections with other Africans and Chinese of diverse ethnicities, have resulted in the unintended emergence of multiethnic catering networks that
generate the necessary spaces for African communities and organisations (networks of
support) to materialise. These networks of support, in turn, facilitate place-making processes
and enhance the development of structures of belonging, which are central to the production
of identities and the articulation of (sometimes transient) feelings of at-homeness, amongst
Africans in the city. I contend that this dialectical process is central to the reproducibility of
the Sino-African ensemble in Guangzhou. Moreover, I claim that a better understanding of
the complex transnational and translocal dynamics enmeshed in this case study is crucial
to make sense of the implications that the rise of Asia has had, and will have, in Asia,
Africa and the world.
The article is structured as follows: in the next section, I locate this case study within the
macro-narrative of the contemporary rapprochement between Africa and China, before
tracing the histories and types of journeys that have brought individuals from all over
Sub-Saharan Africa to Guangzhou. In the second section, I discuss issues related to the labelling of Africans in Guangzhou as migrants/immigrants, and then outline some of the patterns and behaviours displayed by Africans in transnational settings. Finally, I examine how
place-making processes are undertaken at the individual and spatial levels and how this
place-making structures senses of belonging. Throughout all these sections, I illustrate how
the aforementioned networks are crucial devices in the reproduction of the African presence
in Guangzhou.
A cautionary note on terminology is in order here. While I have elsewhere criticised the
use of categories such as African and Chinese, as they tend to flatten out diversity and
complexity, I still use these categories in some situations, as they are efficient discursive
tools for explaining things. When needed, however, I unpack both categories and refer
specifically to the various ethnicities and nationalities subsumed into them.
Before proceeding, I must state that while I have started by comparing Chucks journey
to China with mine, this article will not be a comparison of our experiences in this country.

Feeling at home in the Chocolate City 237

Africa(ns) in the context of the rise of Asia
The transformations brought about by the rise of Asia have had profound implications in a
myriad of places, practices, and imaginations. These implications have been particularly felt
on the African continent (Alden 2007; Brautigam 2011; Michel and Beuret 2009). Over the last
decade, direct exchanges between Asian and African countries have translated into a huge
array of opportunities at all levelsfrom foreign direct investment to individual trade and
migration.
Chuckalong with most Africans I have spoken to during my fieldworklocates his
presence in China within the context of the rise of Asia. He claims that he came to the
region, not only because it has become a global economic centre but because it is a place
that offers a range of opportunities for exploring your own potentials. Many Africans in
Guangzhou (from places as diverse as Congo, Zambia, Angola, Uganda, and Ghana) have
told me that they see their individual transnational trading activities as central to the economic and political rapprochement between China and Africa. In their imaginations, China
represents not only a personal opportunity, but also an opportunity for Africa.
It is not news that Chinese investments and commercial migration to Africa have had a
profound impact on the continents economies and on the livelihoods of its people (see Alden
2007; Brautigam 2011). Take for instance commercial exchanges. ChinaAfrica trade volume
has had more than a twentyfold increase over the last decadereaching US$200 billion in
2012 from US$10 billion in 2002 (Africa.news.cn 2013). Over a slightly longer period, direct
exports from Guangzhou to African countries (mainly manufactured products)1 have
increased more than tenfoldup from around US$165 million in 1996 to US$2.1 billion in
2010 (Li, Lyons, and Brown 2012, 57). As a consequence of these structural macroeconomic
pushes, and of individual microeconomic efforts, only a decade after the intensification of
AfricaChina economic relations, China is now Africas largest trading partner, having surpassed the United States in 2011 (Wonacott 2011). Over this period, Chinese migration to
several African destinations has had an unparalleled increasethere are now an estimated
one million Chinese on the continent, up from less than 40,000 in the early 2000s (Brautigam
2011; Michel and Beuret 2009). Commercial activities related to this massive flow of people
into Africa have resulted in what has been described as a tsunami of Chinese goods
made in China products are now ubiquitous in the markets of almost every big
African city (Zhang 2008, 388). This tsunami has spurred scores of traders to develop
their own transnational trading strategies in an attempt to outdo their Chinese competitors,
and a first step in these strategies is often journeying to Guangzhou (Bertoncelo and
Bredeloup 2007).
Although Chuck does not view his presence in Asia as a direct counteraction to the wave
of Chinese migrants and goods in Africa, he (along with almost every other African I have
met) considers himself to have the right to be in China. Again and again, during my fieldwork, I have been told that if Chinese are there [in Africa], we should be able to do business
here. A great number of those that set out to do business in China are informed and bolstered by this rationale. Moreover, during the last decade, the omnipresent global media narrative about the rise of China, along with word-of-mouth about green pastures and new
lands of opportunities has lured thousands of Africans (and many others) to journey to the
heart of Guangdong province. These new ways of talking about (or imagining) China are also
increasingly influenced by the growing soft power that the Peoples Republic has been disseminating across the continent. The emergence of Sino-African media outlets such as
Xinhuas South African Newspaper Africa Times or CCTV Africa (based in Nairobi,
Kenya), and projects such as Xinhua Gallery, a 2011 photographic exhibition depicting
the lives and works of Africans in China (which kicked off simultaneously in 18 African
countries), are good examples of this.

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Roberto Castillo

However, the contemporary presence of Africans in Guangzhou can only be partially

explained by these wider narratives of recent economic and political rapprochement. Africans
are, in fact, not entirely new players in Chinas (or Asias) ethnoscapes (Appadurai [1990]
2003), and their presence in the region, as suggested by Bertoncelo and Bredeloup (2007), predates the recent intensification of state-level economic relations. Long-term transnational
traders, with trading networks extending from Africa and the Middle East to Southeast
Asia, arrived in China right after the collapse of the Asian Tigers in 1997. Malians involved
in mineral trade since the early 1980s, for instance, left their positions in Bangkok, Jakarta and
Hong Kong after the crisis to establish pioneering outposts in Guangzhou (Bertoncello and
Bredeloup 2009; Zhang 2008). Around the same time, Nigerians that had cut out Middle
Eastern intermediaries began opening their own export offices in the Special Economic
Zone of Shenzhen (Bertoncello and Bredeloup 2009), before later moving to Guangzhou.
These early pioneers carried out the collective, but perhaps unintended, task of opening
trading routes, opportunities, and imaginations for the next generation of African
entrepreneurs.
Contemporary routes, types, and numbers
No one really knows how many Africans are there in Guangzhou, Chuck tells me. We are
trying to organize a registration procedure, but it has not been easy. Data from the last
national censusthe first ever accounting for foreignersindicate that there are currently
some 600,000 registered foreigners living in the countryalong with some 400,000 residents
from Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan (NBSC 2011). Citizens from countries such as Korea,
the United States, Japan, Myanmar, Vietnam, Canada, France, India, Germany and Australia
account for some 70% of foreign residents (some 420,000). Guangdong province is reported as
hosting the majority of this combined population (Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, and
foreigners) with some 300,000 individuals. At this point, it is important to note that the category of foreign residents used in this statistical measurement does not account for the
number of unregistered foreigners (those living in the country by extending or renewing
tourist, business or student visas, and those who overstay their permits). Nonetheless, it
comes as no surprise that the census points to Guangzhou as hosting the greatest number
of foreigners. Over the last decade, Africans have been the most salient group of foreign residents and transient populations in the city. Interestingly, despite a lack of reliable data on the
numbers, nationalities, and activities of these subjects, the hype about Africans in Guangzhou has led several researchers to either lay claim to non-rigorous calculations or accidentally reify rumours resulting in figures ranging from 1500 to 20,000 to over 100,000 (see
Bodomo 2010; Li, Ma, and Xue 2009; Zhang 2008). Unfortunately, these widely quoted
figures are nothing more than speculation bolstered by media claims (ubiquitously
reproduced) of an African population growing at a rate of 30 to 40% annually since 2003
(see Branigan 2010; Osnos 2009, amongst countless others).
Over the last five years, scholarship has attempted not only to determine numbers but
also the nationalities of Africans assembling in Guangzhou. The latter has also proven difficult; the ease of obtaining Chinese entry visas is highly erratic and seemingly dependent
on the particular relationship China is having with each African state at that time. Back in
20082009, Adams Bodomo (2010) reported that the majority of people, in what he calls
the African community of Guangzhou, were coming from Nigeria and Ghana and, to
a lesser extent, from Mali and Guinea. Around the same time, Zhang (2008) and Li
et al. (2008) wrote that the Africans in the ethnic enclave they were surveying were
mainly Francophone from West Africa (presumably, Mali, Senegal and Guinea). Besides
these authors, there have been no further attempts to establish the origins of Africans
in the city.

Feeling at home in the Chocolate City 239

Africans in Guangzhou is an umbrella term that encapsulates a wide variety of origins
and trajectories. From economic crises to international relations, from individual drives to
itinerant trading traditions, there is a plethora of factors involved in determining who is
moving between Africa and China, and how and when they are moving. Most Africans I
have met in Guangzhou move back and forth often. Some people travel once a month,
others once a year. There are, of course, those who come once, have long sojourns (sometimes
overstaying their visas), and then never come back. There are countless individual stories;
however, I claim that a great deal of those discursively identified as Africans in Guangzhou
share one important feature: transiency. This transiency (bolstered by an increased transnational mobility) renders the task of pinning down national origins (or population figures)
almost an impossible one. Furthermore, I argue that if a focus is put on transiency, the
debate about nationalities and numbers loses currency. Focusing on transiency does not
necessarily mean that I contend that Africans have not established roots in the city
people on the move may develop a sense of being at home in the world despite relatively
transient connections to particular places (Conradson and Latham 2005, 288). Instead, this
focus helps me to better understand the ways in which many of them have developed this
sense, while simultaneously maintaining relations in several locations. Indeed, I maintain
that the African population in Guangzhou is a transient and recurring one. In order to
follow this argument and clarify notions of transiency and recurrence, it is useful to focus
on trajectories.
Trajectories
Broadly speaking, it is possible to identify at least three types of trajectories amongst Africans
that live in, recurrently visit, and pass through Guangzhou: the more established; the itinerants and semi-settled; and the newly-arrived.
The more established individuals are usually older traders (mainly middle-aged males
with a few exceptions) who have been doing business in Guangzhou for more than a
decade. They usually have considerable investments in the city, and are very well connected
with local producers, as well as with authorities and other foreigners. Many of these individuals have managed to open offices (where they usually act as middlemen between Chinese
and Africans) and shops in local clothing and electronics markets. Some of these individuals
have established trading organisations that, in some cases, have become national representations offices. While most of the individuals in this category have long been participating
in the transnational trading networks mentioned earlier, a significant proportion came to
China in the early 2000s directly from their countries (mainly Mali, Ghana, and Nigeria)
without much previous trading experience. Back then, some of them found themselves
almost accidentally involved in the then flourishing garment trade and from there they
learnt how to shift into other trading activities in China. Due to their capacity to adapt,
many of these individuals succeeded in becoming businessmena fact that to some extent
has facilitated their continued presence in the country.
A minority of those in this broad category (but still a considerable number) have
managed to establish familieseither by marrying Chinese women, or by bringing their
families from their countries. In a way, as their understandings of Chinese cultures are decidedly more extensive, these more established individuals function as mediators and
facilitators influencing and negotiating the movement and temporary settlement of their
fellow co-nationals, thus benefiting from their ability to be located in China (Bredeloup
2012, 32). It is important to note, however, that while their stay in the country is in most
cases legal (they are more prone to hold longer-term stay permits), there are no working
immigration frameworks that would ensure their permanent stay or citizenship in the
countrythe fact of being married to a Chinese or having a business in China does not

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guarantee a right of abode. Most individuals in this category have relative proficiency in a
Chinese language (usually Mandarin, but sometimes in Cantonese or another dialect).
The second broad type of trajectory (itinerants and semi-settled) comprises all those
who frequently move back and forth between (and across) the two regions. Most of these subjects have their own rhythms and move at significantly distinct paces. Take for instance some
of the itinerant Angolan women that lodge in the hotel where I usually stay. The most
active amongst them travel back to their country every 4 to 6 weeks. They usually travel
alone (sometimes in pairs) and, once in Guangzhou, rely on other female traders for
lodging and business contacts. As Angola and China have strengthened their economic
links, it is relatively easier for Angolans to obtain entry visas to China than it is for say Nigerians. Michel, a semi-settled Angolan trader I met during one of my fieldtrips, for example,
has been in China for three years nowneeding to exit the country only once every year. The
possibilities and mobility he gets from his visa arrangement stand in stark contrast to those of
Nigerians, who usually only get 30 days non-extendable visas.
I contend that individuals in this category are the bulk of what has been construed as the
African population in the city. Guangzhous Africans are people on the movetransients. In
their incessant transnational and translocal commutes, these individuals circulate between
different trading posts, sometimes relying on the dealings and infrastructures set up by
more established individuals, in the search for comparative advantages, as Bertoncelo
and Bredeloup (2007) have put forward. Semi-settled individuals (like Michel) are more
like economic explorers seeking opportunities, anticipating trends, mediating deals, and
sometimes buying directly from the Chinese to resell to other Africans (Bertoncello and Bredeloup 2009). This category comprises many of those who, moving back and forth between
Guangzhou and places such as Abuja, Nairobi, or Dar-Es-Salaam, have reacted with transnational individual entrepreneurial efforts (import-export strategies) in an attempt to counter
Chinese presence in African markets (as discussed earlier); and also more experienced translocal/transnational itinerant traders (i.e. Angolan women and Igbo Nigerian men). The presence of these Angolans and Nigerians in Guangzhou could also be seen as a contemporary
(re)articulation (relocation) of longstanding traditions of movement and tradeevidence of
how certain African trading cultures of circulation, in their transnational mode, have
finally reached China.
Alongside these more established, and itinerants and semi-settled, almost anyone
with some economic means, basic trading skills, and with the drive for adventure can start
moving back and forth between the two regions. Indeed, many newcomers do so without
relying on the structures laid down by more established individuals. The third broad type
of trajectory, thus, encapsulates multiple stories of fortune seeking, success, failure, and
becoming. These newly-arrived are usually younger individuals that have been propelled
toward China in multifarious ways. Many of them, lured by the new land of opportunities
discourse, collect funds amongst relatives and friends and set out on a once-in-a-lifetime (or
suicidal as Chuck claims) mission to seek their fortunes in Chinasome manage to obtain
business visas and are relatively successful; others, however, are less fortunate. Many individuals in this category lack trading experience, have a shortage of capital and a limited understanding of how things work in China, and are abroad for the first time. A high number end
up stranded or immobile, (as reported by Haugen 2012) with difficult migratory statuses
and a reliance on community networks to survive.
Although the typology laid out above is useful to describe the different types of affiliations and commitments of the individuals in this case study, the very mobilities and fluidities
they display (or could attain) renders it rather difficult to fix them in specific types along the
settled/itinerant continuum. While, for instance, there seems to be a constant/recurrent presence of say, semi-settled people, these individuals can at any given moment, depending on
individual strategies and circumstances (and/or macro-political conjunctures), attempt to

Feeling at home in the Chocolate City 241

become more settled (i.e. Chucks move from some sort of itinerant back and forth movement
to a more settled position with his multiple businesses in Guangzhou). As Bertoncello and
Bredeloup (2009) have argued, most African transnational traders go through unpatterned
cycles of rest and movement (never settling, always departing, or vice versa, if you want)
throughout their journeys. Seasoned and settled businessmen may relaunch into risky itinerant trade, while a newer itinerant trader might settle down for a couple of years only to
reconvert a few years later (2009, 58). In other words, journeying through the transnational
trading networks that connect localities in China and Africa, an individual may shift from
being a football player looking for a try-out in the Chinese soccer league to a semi-settled
trader roaming around factories in Southern China in the search for comparative advantages;
or, from a Pentecostal clerk attempting to evangelise Chinese, to an English kindergarten
teacher; or from an itinerant trader to a settled family man owning a restaurant and a
cargo office. When we pay attention to individual stories, decisions, aspirations, trajectories,
and mobilities (this is, to the individual ability to shift as a strategy for self-realisation and/or
survival), and to the instability of the context, it becomes rather clear how difficult it is to
maintain a fixed distinction between settled, semi-settled, or itinerant. In short, I claim that
in the case of Africans in Guangzhou (as seems to be common to several other African diasporas) the trajectories, paces, and paths these individuals undertake subvert, confuse, and
blur the notions of movement and settlement that are pervasive in traditional/structural/
economistic approaches to migration.
Finally, I contend that this ability to shift while on the transnational move functions as
something similar to a Foucaultian technology of the self (Foucault 1988). From Driscoll
(2010, 184), I understand technology as a set of tools, skills and literacies that intersect
with systems of power to subvert or reinforce certain orders. Some transnational movers,
while looking for material and immaterial wellbeing (i.e. self-realisation), use this shifting
ability as a strategic tool to break away with (or resist) social, local and national classlike constraints. Moreover, for many of these individuals, the ability to shift transnationallyboth in the physical/cartographical sense theorised by Glick Schiller (Basch, Schiller,
and Blanc 1994) and also in the transgressive, imaginative, and translational senses suggested
by Ong (1999) and Appadurai (1996)works, I claim, as a kind of techno-cultural device (or
strategy) when searching for mobility and wellbeing in transnational settings. Finally, these
abilities to move back and forth, to settle for a while only to relaunch later, to shift roles
and identities, evince how complex and unstable transnational African journeys can be.
Likewise, they also represent a great challenge to anyone attempting to depict Africans as
immigrants in the process of assimilation in China, especially in a Chinese context,
where the long-term settlement of foreigners (dont even discuss assimilation or citizenship
rights) is customarily hindered.
Migrants, transmigrants, itinerants, nomads, global citizens?
As I have been trying to show, the conditions for movement from Africa to China are multifarious. I contend that there is no single metanarrative that provides a comprehensive explanation. Take for instance Chucks story. He was not forced by a push-and-pull effect to
migrate to China, nor was he the victim of an obscure, transnational, migration-brokering
cartel; he came to the country of his own free will to explore his potentials (self-realisation). After travelling back and forth from 2006 to 2008 and surveying a number of
Chinese cities, he chose Guangzhou as his operating base. Here, unlike in Nigeria where
the manufacturing and producing infrastructure is not so vast, you can do things. You
bring your ideas and they can become real; you can produce everything you want, he
says. He is not the only one that thinks this way. Several Africans I spoke to (who also
claim to have come to China on their own) see the country as an opportunity to work

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independently and build themselves a name, a brand, and a future. Chuck contends, along
with many others, that he is an entrepreneur doing business in China. He has also told me
that he resents representations of Africans in China as immigrants. We are not immigrants
here. You cant be that here. China is not a country for migrationthey need no migrants, he
explains. Chuck considers himself a citizen of the world that has strategically decided to go
to China. You need to go where you can fulfil your potential. Now is China. It could have
been anywhere else, he comments.
Interestingly, the labels of migrant and immigrant were rejected by most of my interviewees as they associate such labels with refugees and people living through hardship. Most
people I spoke to have plans to leave China in the futuremost intend to go back to their
countries, some hope to save enough money to move to Europe or North America.
However, in an attempt to make sense of the flow of people from Africa towards China,
numerous reports have construed these subjects as a wave of immigrants (often represented
as sojourning illegally in China), and struggling to survive whilst evading police persecution
on a daily basis (see for instance, Haugen 2012; Li, Lyons, and Brown 2012). While that could
be the case for some individuals (and it undoubtedly is), it is certainly not the case for the
majority.
Not only do many Africans in Guangzhou not see themselves as migrants, it is impossible to immigrate to China in the way immigration is usually discussed in Western contexts.
As pointed out earlier, China lacks a stable institutional legal framework for migration. So,
holding a permanent resident permit is the closest one can get to becoming an immigrant. Over the last three decades, the Chinese government has granted fewer than 4000
of these permits (This is Beijing! 2012)in a country of 1.3 billion with a foreign population
of 600,000, such a tiny figure might indicate that an immigration framework is not a
central interest.
Most Africans that I have spoken to, either itinerant traders or those living and doing
business in the city, are there on valid permits. However, most Africans that have been in
China for longer periods know that the visa system is highly erratic and that their situation
could change at any time. In short, I argue that it is difficult to locate Africans in Guangzhou
within mainstream typologies of the immigrant. They are not necessarily displaced individuals, or victims of the push-pull inertia that writers in Migration Studies tend to identify
as the crucial determinant in the movement of people across borders. Neither are Africans in
China migrants within the logic of the international division of labour (moving from the
global South to the global North).2 Rather, most Africans in Guangzhou are more like transnational entrepreneurs. This is, individuals that have chosen to go to China in search of
greater economic wellbeing and opportunities for personal development, whilst retaining
connections to several localities in distinct countries. Indeed, many of these subjects see
their transnational journeys as transformative processes and opportunities for new
beginnings.
Before proceeding, I want to make it clear that I am not trying to make a case against the
notion of the migrantor against decades of tradition in Migration Studies. I do not intend
to claim that due to the simultaneous and multiple transnational/translocal attachments and
commitments generated by the intensification of interactions in contemporary global human
movement, we now live in a post-migration world. However, I do endeavour to highlight
the need to problematise mainstream assumptions that are prone to locate all those (predominantly non-Western subjects) whose life journeys have taken them to move between
foreign and familiar lands within the boxes of migration, assimilation, and settlementa
practice rife in traditional streams of Migration Studies. To assume that most Africans in
Guangzhou (or China) are (or desire to become) immigrants is not only a point of resentment amongst those Africans living in Guangzhouas suggested abovebut more importantly a legacy of sedentaristic methodological approaches that assume that settlement is

Feeling at home in the Chocolate City 243

normal, and treat distance, change, instability, and placelessness as abnormal. These
approaches tend to correlate concepts such as migration, home and origin with those of immigration, host and arrival. Although they are good for sociological explanations, these binary
structures simplify human flow and tend to disregard the multiplicity of trajectories, mobilities, classes, genders, traditions and personal desires and stories driving (in conjunction, of
course, with more structural imperatives) the transnational movement of the individuals in
this case study.
In problematising the concept of migration, I suggest that the notion of transnational
mobility be adopted as it better accommodates human (and non-human) movements
beyond the limited definition of migrationunderstood as residing and settling in another
country for a long period of timeand away from the home-host, departure-destination,
origin-settlement, and assimilation-acculturation binaries and tropes. Mobility is a more
dynamic term that emphasises the fluidity, itinerancy, transience and changeability of the
subjects in this case study. By thinking of transnational mobility instead of migration,
not only the regularities but also the irregularities of human transnational movement are
incorporated. Additionally, a space is opened to look at those dwelling on the move (transnational mobiles/nomads?) and to better understand how transnational and diasporic networks are mobilised. Moreover, by challenging the telos of inquiry and methodological
research in structural studies of migration, the notion of transnational mobility resonates
with the trenchant critiques of the bounded and static categories of nation (methodological
nationalism), community, place and state offered by theorists such as Appadurai (1996),
Glick Schiller (Basch, Schiller, and Blanc 1994), and by those theorising the formation of translocal identities (i.e. Mandaville 1999). A transnational mobilities perspective could also be a
point of convergence of previous theorisations on transnationalism, translocality, mobility,
networks and assemblages. As is evident in Chucks claim to global citizenship, a sense
of transnational mobility challenges geographically bounded notions of at homeness.
Sometimes home becomes embodieda project that is carried and reproduced on the
move: under conditions of transnationality home is where you make it, where you are.
So far, I have located this case study within the macro-narrative of the contemporary rapprochement between Africa and China: I have traced the broad trajectories, types and histories of some Africans in Guangzhou; and I have discussed certain aspects conditioning
their transnational movement and/or migration. In the following section, I focus on
place-making practices and structures of belonging as strategies used by individuals to stabilise and extend their livelihoods and presence in China.
Re-imagining Guangzhou: place-making and structures of belonging in the
Chocolate City
Place-making usually starts with the appropriation (individual or collective) of a particular
area (space) of a city by those who are perceived as outsiders by earlier settlers. In most of
the literature on place-making, the notion refers to the ways in which migrants forge collective identities when facing discrimination or poverty in a host society. In this way, the concept
is often understood as a strategy for settlement that allows migrants to develop common
identities and means of mobilising collectively (Gill 2010, 1157). The experiences of
African transnational movers in Guangzhou show that while place-making is, indeed, a generator of common identities and opportunities for collective mobilisation, it is also an
unstable process that does not necessarily lead to the perpetuation of individuals or collectives in the host country. Moreover, place-making is not always linked to poverty, discrimination or the intention of settling down. Although this practice can be analysed on several
levels, this article focuses on the micro level of the individual and the mezzo level of communities and organisations. This is, how individuals make place by first congregating in a

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neighbourhood (where forms and meanings associated with imaginings of home and
community start to be reproduced), and then participating in (or developing) organisations
that facilitate the reproducibility of their presence. By sketching out how individual and collective place-making processes structure the experiences of Africans in Guangzhou, I locate
the spaces where senses of belonging and affective attachments are being produced. For individuals in Guangzhou, place-making as a process transforms space into familiar places and
generates personal attachments and commitmentsit is often used as a survival strategy and
as a tool to unveil opportunities in a new place. In short, I argue that it is a process that entails
a dialectical unfolding of affective correlations between self and place that help individuals to
make sense of an unfamiliar environment. At a collective level, on the other hand, placemaking is usually linked to sets of strategies that communities and organisations employ
to assert a collective identity among host populations (Gill 2010, 1157). In the case of Guangzhou, the attempt by the Nigerian community office to promote a positive African image (an
attempt that I will discuss later in this article) could be seen as an example of collective placemaking (Figure 1).
If there is a crucial locale in the processes of place making for Africans in Guangzhou it is
Dengfeng (dengfengcun)an urban village (chengzhongcun) that looks more like a rundown
neighbourhood than a village, and that forms an ensemble with the more modern and contiguous neighbourhood of Xiaobei (xiaobeilu). Dengfeng is one of the hundreds of villages that
in the last few decades have been engulfed by Guangzhous booming urban expansion/
development. Historically, internal migrants have tended to congregate in the relatively marginal settings of Guangzhous urban villages, where the costs of living are lower (Zhou and
Cai 2008). As Guangzhous re-articulation into the global economy took hold, Dengfengs
strategic geographical location (a short walk from Guangzhou Railway Station and across
from Tianxiu Building (tianxiudasha)a centre for Chinese, Middle Eastern and African
import-export activities), made it a centre not only for translocal but also for transnational
exchanges. Over the last 15 years, the whole area has been radically transformed as a consequence of the constant presence and recurrence of transnational traders from the Middle East,
South Asia and Africa, and by their interactions with the continuous transprovincial flow of
internal migrants from the Chinese hinterland. Owing to the high visibility of Africans and

Figure 1.

Left: Honghui trading mall in front of Xiaobei Subway Exit D; right: view of
Dengfeng village from Tianxiu Building (photo by author).

Feeling at home in the Chocolate City 245

other foreign groups, the media and some scholarship have coined this area as the Chocolate
City, the Little Muslim United Nations, and, more recently, Chinas Little Africa (Gillet
2013; Li, Lyons, and Brown 2012; Osnos 2009; Zhang 2008). However, these conceptualisations fail to grasp the complexity found on the ground. They tend to blur the importance
of the activities carried out by diverse ensembles of Chinese ethnic minorities that also converge on the area.
Dengfengs main entrance, flanked by a Public Security Bureau Office (police station), is a
dimly lit tunnel usually bustling with pedestrians. Most other entries to this urban village are
partially gated. Roaming through the cramped alleys of the village, one can witness firsthand the thriving interactions between several Chinese and African cultures and economies.
A heterogeneous mix of restaurants offering all types of Chinese, Muslim and African cuisines provides the neighbourhood with a unique fragrance. These food spaces are surrounded by all kinds of commercial activities. Twenty-four-hour stalls offering cheap
calling rates to African countries emerge from practically every unused space. Makeshift
(and officially illegal) currency exchange booths are side by side with stalls selling shoes
and CDs and DVDs of Nigerian, Congolese, Indian and American movies and music.
Every now and then one can spot ads for micro-schools for learning Mandarin and
English. Uyghurs have Africanised their grills and instead of only grilling their traditional
lamb skewers, they prepare whole chickens and fish Africa Style. Many restaurants around
the area have followed this trend and changed from traditional noodle soup menus to fish,
chicken and rice. Hotels cater specifically for African clientele. French-speaking Chinese
travel agents share office space with garment shops with staff from central China who are
able to speak basic Portuguese. Entrepreneurs from the Cantonese hinterland have set up
Turkish BBQ houses and African bars. All this is straddled amongst a plethora of other
businessespharmacies, grocery stores, furniture shops, fruit peddlers, electronics shops,
phone repairs, Uyghur bakeries, tailors, supermarkets, hair saloons (either Chinese or
African), dry cleaners and wet markets, for example, which cater for general consumption.
If you spend enough time in the areaask a few questions and knock on some doors
another layer of material practices emerges: small mosques in the malls; clandestine Pentecostal churches; hidden bars; and Ghanaian, Nigerian, Malian, and Angolan family kitchens run
out of apartment rooms (Figure 2).
In order to make better sense of how Chinese and Africans are articulating at the local
level, it is useful to look at a concrete example from my fieldwork. In the midst of the
vibrant conglomerate of economies, languages and ethnicities briefly sketched above, New
Dengfeng Hotel stands as a crucial localea node at the intersection of several subeconomies
struggling over and regimenting the daily activities in the area. Originally developed by
Hunan migrant entrepreneurs, New Dengfeng Hotel, a mixed business that has trading
malls, upscale Muslim restaurants, Sahelian eateries, internet cafs, mini-mosques, clandestine Pentecostal churches and hotel rooms distributed across all floors, hosts around 400
sojourners (mainly from Africa) at any one time. Seizing the opportunities brought about
by the intersection of the abovementioned flows in and around this hotel, Chinese nationals
from different ethnic groups have developed several microindustries in the area. Take for
instance three of the most salient groups: Hui (huizu), Han (hanzu) from Hunan and Hubei,
and Uyghur (weiwuerzu) people.
Every day at dawn, an incessant noise rises from one of the alleys at the side of the
hotel. Dozens of middle-aged Hui men, glued to their phones with calculators in hand,
hold tense negotiations before swapping packs of dollars and renminbi in an informal
foreign exchange market. After fixing the exchange rates, they distribute smaller
amounts of money to their fellow Hui youngsters who then roam around the area offering exchange to foreign traders. While the men organise the informal exchange activities in the neighbourhood, many of their female relatives either manage the highly

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Figure 2.

Tunnel entrance to Dengfeng village (photo by author).

frequented 24-hour Lanzhou Halal restaurants, or are engaged in selling international

phone-cards.
The area in front of New Dengfeng Hotel is a small 200-square-metre open space that
bustles with activity for around 20 hours every day. From early in the morning, hundreds
of people converge there offering a plethora of different services. Most of this space is occupied by a non-stop ebb and flow of dozens of grey minivans driven by young men from the
central provinces of Hunan and Hubei and loaded with merchandise acquired by African
traders. As the minivans park, female porters from the same provinces bustle about
waiting for the goods to be unloaded onto trolleys before pushing them towards the hotel
rooms. Most rooms in New Dengfeng Hotel are packed to the hilt. Once a room is full, the
merchandise gets taken (usually by the same women) to cargo offices in the vicinity of the
hotel. There are close connections between the people working as porters and drivers and
hotel staffmany of them have familial ties or come from neighbouring towns or cities in
the abovementioned provinces. This tightly knit assemblage of people (sharing regional identities and kin) collectively controls a whole layer of activities aimed at satisfying trading and
the everyday-life needs of transnational traders.
Throughout the day, this open space in front of the hotel is a site of intense multiethnic,
translocal and transnational interactions. As night falls, the area becomes a social centre for
small groups of African men and women to discuss politics and exchange information
about prices and markets. As these conversations emerge and trading activities seem to
fade, a whole ensemble of mainly Hunan migrants carrying poles hung with colourful clothing, reminiscent of the traditional bamboo yokes, start populating the empty spaces left by the
morning exchange market and the surrounding alleys. Around the same time, Uyghur grilling
carts arrive colonising the space previously taken up by the minivans and the mostly young

Feeling at home in the Chocolate City 247

Figure 3.

Left: Open space (terrace) in front of New Dengfeng Hotel; right: view of
Tianxiu Building from Dengfeng (photo by author).

men start preparing the chickens, catering for Africans in the area. Over the course of a day,
these same young Uyghurs switch from driving the pervasive small moto-taxis, to peddling
freshly cut fruit, to finally participating in the grilling activities. Although the scene could
come across as highly chaotic, the whole assemblage of sellers and peddlers occupying the
alleys is highly regimentedthe different microindustries having strong ethno-national
affiliations. As night deepens, many of the small restaurants become bars and the myriad
passers-by from Africa, the Middle East and China dine, drink, shop and socialise in the neighbourhood. To some extent, the presence of Hui and Uyghur alongside North African Arabic
speakers, Middle Easterners and Turkish, Pakistanis and Sub-Saharan Muslims, generates a
Muslim atmosphere, or to be more precise, a Sino-Afro-Muslim assemblage (Figure 3).
If you walk out of the village, through the dimly lit tunnel and the pedestrian overpass
that connect it with the more modern Xiaobei, you will find yourself in front the most prominent landmark in the area: the 15-year-old Tianxiu Buildingformerly known as the Dubai
Tower and more recently, albeit unofficially, the Africa Tower. The building has repeatedly
been equated with Hong Kongs famous Chungking Mansions as a centre for low-end globalisation in China (see Mathews 2007, 2011; Mathews and Yang 2012); and it was here that
the first African and Middle Eastern traders opened their cargo offices in the late 1990s. Out of
Tianxius more than 700 apartments, around 65% are leased to Africans, and the rest mostly
to Middle Easterners or Chinese. On an everyday basis, hundreds of people visit the first four
storeysthe official commercial space in the buildingwhere mostly Chinese shopkeepers
sell all kinds of shanzhai computers, USBs, headphones, tablets and smartphones, and
everything from shoes, garments, sheets and fabrics (with African designs), leather products,
to powdered soap, toys, cosmetics, wigs and human hair (advertised as 100% Brazilian
or Indian). The higher floors of the building are officially designated as residential and

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semi-commercial. In the afternoons, countless Africans pack into the elevators to visit the
buildings more than 50 restaurants and eateries (some better established than others)
where many West African cooks work in tandem with Chinese cooks preparing fufu,
jollof, plantain and other African dishes. On the first floor, the Egyptian- and Libyanmanaged cafs are critical spaces where French-, Bambara- and Wollof-speaking individuals
do business and socialise. Although most Africans I have spoken to identify the building as a
place to find people from all over Africa, francophones (mainly Malians, Guineans,
Senegalese, and Togolese) are among the most salient.
While some Africans with more settled histories have managed to open up small
businesses such as garment shops, hair salons and restaurants/eateries in Dengfeng, Tianxiu
and other malls in the area of Xiaobei, they, in no way, compete directly with internal migrants
at the microindustry and subeconomic levels described above. Moreover, African-owned commercial spaces tend to be located in less accessible placessuch as the top or underground
floorswhere rents and visibility are lower (the same goes for churches and mosques). In a
way, African and Chinese businesses are together (in the same malls) but separate in distant
and different spaces. Perhaps one of the commercial sites where Africans and Chinese
compete and collaborate on relatively more equal grounds is in the highly competitive sector
of import-export cargo and representation offices (business consultants) (Haugen 2011). Generally speaking, however, rather than competing with Chinese for local jobs, Africans in the area
act as mediators weaving together multiple components in assemblages of translocal/transnational subeconomies, thus generating new and more complex economic spaces.
A great number of those currently lodging or living in Dengfeng report having had
knowledge of the existence of an African neighbourhood prior to their arrival in the city.
It is in the setting of this translocal and transnational space that Chuck, along with almost
all the Africans I have spoken to, started looking for contacts, business and opportunities
when they first arrived. Nowadays, regardless of their current statuses (whether settled or
itinerant traders, whether aspiring to immigrate or just wandering) most Africans converge, at one time or another, on either Dengfeng or the surrounding Xiaobei. These two
areas are, however, not only a main point of entry for a great number of the Africans that
pass through the city but, more importantly, a crucial site where they intersect with other
Africans and with the complex ecology of Chinese migrants. Accordingly, it could be
argued that the whole area is a site where transnational African flows meet with those of
the transprovincial and transethnic Chinese systemsa neighbourhood where the local,
the translocal, and the transnational converge.
In short, I argue that the friction between transnational and translocal trading flows, and
the entrepreneurial ethnic organisations and traditions of Chinese nationals, generates
specific niches where microindustries operate catering services to fulfil specific visitor
related needs (i.e. currency exchange, Halal food and phone-cards). The endurance of
several of these microindustries has resulted in the emergence of complex and interdependent subeconomies.3 On a daily basis, these subeconomies weave supply and services,
thus structuring catering networks. Furthermore, these networks not only make possible
the recurrence and continuation of the African presence in Guangzhou but, more importantly,
they lay down the foundation for the emergence of more complex forms of organisation
that structure belonging at the individual and collective levels (i.e. representation offices, religious congregations, and leisure clubs)what I call networks of support. Finally, as I have
been trying to show, to construe African presence in Guangzhou as a merely African affair
(happening within the bounded realms of an imagined Chocolate City) falls short of capturing the complexity of the Sino-African assemblages activated by the convergence in the
city of the many actors that I have ethnographically listed above. Africans are not the only
transients in this case study, Chinese (and others) are also on the move: Dengfeng is a multiethnic site of translocal and transnational transiency, not really a Chocolate City (Figure 4).

Feeling at home in the Chocolate City 249

Figure 4.

Left: an Uyghur moto-taxi driver and his two Angolan passengers; right:
everyday life in Dengfeng (photo by author).

It is in the midst of this (briefly sketched) multiethnic translocal imbroglio that Africans
(along with most others in the area) undertake, with varying intensities and strategies,
complex processes of place-making.
Struggling amidst green pastures
While on the first leg of my fieldwork, one of my contacts suggested I speak to Tony, a 37year-old Igbo well known by many Africans in Guangzhou. We arrange our first meeting
in a busy Starbucks in the area of Taojin, a relatively prosperous part of the city. Tony
arrives by car with a physical assistant. Among the many things he does in China is
manage the first Nigerian football team to have played in Guangzhous International
League. The first thing I notice when entering Starbucks is that Tony uses a walking stick.
Later he tells me that during his last trip to Nigeria, he was involved in a car accident and
had his right femur broken in two places. He was hospitalised for eight weeks with
several surgical interventions. Against the doctors advice, he rushed back to Guangzhou
only two months after the accident to be reunited with his Chinese wife and their two childrenone pertinent reason for his rush was that, according to a new Chinese law, his
spouse residence permit does not allow him to be out of the country for more than three
months each year.
Tony, fluent in Mandarin and able to understand the Cantonese his children speak at
home, left Nigeria at 25 years of age to explore the possibilities of outsourcing part of his
fathers business to China. As his father was against the idea, he set out without family
support. He remembers that back when he arrived in 2001, Guangzhou was very different.
There was not as much business as there is now; there were not so many people, and
Chinese were not as open as they are now, he explains. After becoming acquainted with
some of the fewer than 50 Nigerians that were living in Guangzhou in 2001, he started to
work sporadically, loading containers and doing other minor tasks assigned to him by his
fellow countrymen. By relying on these kinds of solidarity structures, he was able to save
some money to start his own business. Although, in many respects, the experiences of
Tony and Chuck are similar, and they agree on many points, Tonys understanding of
China (enhanced by his language skills and cultural knowledge), and of Africans in Guangzhou, seems to be more thorough. During his 12 years in the city, he has seen a great deal of
transformation, not only in the Chinese economy and in the activities of foreigners in the
country but also in his personal life.

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In his early days, there were only three things to do. During the week, I would try
to make ends meet, waiting for the weekend to come so Id go to church and play football, he recounts. He rapidly realised that without language skills, he would not be
able to make the outsourcing of his fathers business efficient. During his first year in
the city, his friends convinced him to try his luck in the clothing business. With the
little money he had earned, he was able to buy some things and send them back to
Nigeria in shared containers where his relatives would sell them and send the profits
back to him. As the clothing sector was thriving back in the early 2000s, he abandoned
the idea of outsourcing. However, as more Africans started arriving in the city, and
more Chinese went to Africa, clothing became very competitive and the profits too
small. As a consequence of this and his growing financial means, he decided to open
a representation office with the objective of acting as a middleman between his countrymen and Chinese producers.
Tony estimates that there are around 700 or 800 Nigerians with valid long-term residence permits in the cityobtained either through marriage to Chinese or as a consequence
of having considerable commercial investments. Unlike Chuck, Tony has a slightly negative
perception of the possibilities for Africans in Guangzhou. He denounces the stubbornness
of the citys officials in easing the granting of residence permits as the main reason why
there are not more Africans in the city. In China, once you are inside the country, local authorities are in charge of granting residence permits. To some extent, each municipality, city
and province employ different policies to manage the foreigners residing in their jurisdictions. As a consequence of this, many Africans have moved to Foshan, Dongguan, and
other surrounding locales where this process is relatively smoother. Tony says that one
of the biggest problems for Africans in China is the visa situation. With the way the
current visa system is structured, they let you know that you dont belong here, he
explains. According to Tony, in the early 2000s, overstaying a visa was not a big
problem; new visas could easily be obtained through unofficial agents. Nowadays, hefty
fines and the possibility of being jailed deter foreigners with irregular statuses from
trying to fix their situations or from leaving the country. Paradoxically, Chinese policies
aimed at restricting the illegal presence of foreigners force many to remain in irregular
situations (this migratory Catch-22, or state of immobility has been explored by
Haugen 2012). According to Tony, in the past, local authorities have established truces
for over-stayers to leave the country, however, very few of those in irregular situations
trust the authorities and all dread being jailedso they stay on. Tony concludes that it is
the duty of Africans to understand that China has its own ways of doing things and that
that will not change. It is us that have to get used to their ways, not them to ours, he
explains, adding that he would not actively encourage anyone to come to the country.
China is difficult, and it is not a green pasture as many imagine. The government
makes it very difficult for foreigners.
Structural discrimination and racism
A great deal of what has been written about Africans in Guangzhou racialises their presence
in the country. Africans tend to be represented as having constant trouble and conflict with
local Chinese. Chuck, who has been interviewed several times by Western media outlets, tells
me that there is no structural racism against black people. Some people want us to say that
there is, but it is not the case. If I have problems here, it is not because I am a black man, but
many people dont want to understand this they think that if I have trouble here it must be
because I am a black man, he explains. Tonys point of view is somewhat similar. When I
have had problems with Chinese and tried to solve them, I have always been treated in the
way Im supposed to be treated, he recounts. Tony argues that at the individual level of

Feeling at home in the Chocolate City 251

everyday interaction with the Chinese, although there might be people that dislike foreigners,
he does not feel that there is racism against Africans. Tony agrees with Chuck in that there is
no structural racism and he further explains that when he first arrived in China he thought
that the Chinese were racist, but his views changed with time. He now thinks that misunderstandings are mostly a matter of ignorance and language. As soon as he reached a good level
of Chinese, and was able to communicate with people and authorities, he was treated better.
Yes, government has their policies that are tough, but with individuals is something different, he says.
Although both Tony and Chuck seem to have a slightly positive view on the subjects of
racism and discrimination, not everybody agrees with them. It is common to find Africans
that complain about different forms of discrimination in their everyday interactions with
Chineseand some of them call it racism. Bodomo (2012) reports that cases of overt discrimination against black people are rifeespecially in dealings with the police. Local authorities have deployed a variety of strategies seemingly focused on hampering what is
perceived as an uncontrolled growth of foreign activity in the city. The Public Security
Bureau of Dengfeng, for instance, has bilingual English-Chinese notices in all restaurants,
cafs and hotels where foreigners congregate, warning visitors about the penalties for
drug-trafficking, violence, robbery and prostitution. These notices are difficult to find in
other areas of the city hosting significant, non-African, foreign populations. Moreover, in
May 2011, Guangdongs provincial government issued a new regulation (the first of its
kind on the administration of foreigners in the country) that forces local residents to report
any malpractice involving foreigners such as illegal entry, overstaying, working without
permits or doing business without licencesthis regulation comes with the threat of exorbitant fines for any residents that fail to comply (Lau 2012). The feeling of being under constant
surveillance and systematically harassed by authorities is one of the shared features in the
place-making narratives of many of those involved in trading activities in Dengfeng. In a
way, Africans in this area have been subjected to an uncomfortable regime of control
similar to that applied to some ethnic minoritieserratic but systematic repression (perceived
by some as discrimination). According to Tony, while the government has the right to decide
how to manage foreign populations, these hurdles make it somehow difficult to feel at
home in Guangzhou.
Community organisations
The Nigerian Embassy estimates that over the last decade around 400 Nigerians have been
incarcerated in China (Usman 2013). The primary reason is not residing illegally in the
country, but rather drug-related offences and fraud. Chuck and Tony both told me that
prior to 2008 many Nigerians went crazy, fighting in the streets, and getting involved in
illegal activities. These problems not only damaged the Nigerian reputation but also local perceptions of Africans in general. In an effort to organise, and to positively promote the image
of Africa, Nigerians, Malians and Ghanaians came up with the idea of forming community
organisations. In Guangzhou, the office of the Nigerian community, for instance, currently
under the management of Ojukwu Emma (a middle-aged trader who holds the title of President of Nigeria in China and a claim to the more bombastic title of President of Africa in
China) is renowned for having pacified Nigerians, and to some extent unified Africans in the
city. One of Emmas strategies has been to create a peace-keeping vigilante group. Chuck,
who has collaborated in the group, puts it bluntly: If you are an African in Guangzhou doing
something bad, we will come to you and give you a warning. If you recur, well come and get
you. You wont escape. This vigilante group has cracked down on several individuals and
handed them over to the local authorities. We cannot allow that the wrongful action of one
affects the whole of the communities in the city, Chuck explains.

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Figure 5.

Ojukwu Emma, President of the Nigerian Community Office in Guangzhou

(photo by author).

In the last five years, there have been two moments of crisis for the African community
organisations of Guangzhou. In July 2009, the second ever demonstration of foreigners in the
PRC took place in the area of Guangyuan West Road (guangyuanxilu) when, following a
police raid, around 300 Africans (of mainly Nigerian descent) took to the streets, blocked
traffic, and congregated outside a police station.4 They were protesting against what many
of them saw as systematic racial persecution and police harassment. In July 2012, a second
massive demonstration took place in the same location after a Nigerian citizen died in
police custody. In both these events, local authorities called on African community representatives to negotiate the peaceful dissolution of the demonstrations. Paradoxically, both these
events enhanced the popularity of the community organisations amongst Africans and city
authorities alike.
Community offices do not only clamp down on illegal activities, or settle quarrels and
dissolve angry mobs at demonstrations, however; they actively network and promote their
activities in the city. According to my interviewees, these offices have organised Africans
to a point in which they now claim to have a voice in city affairs. Now they listen to us
as a group, Chuck says, explaining that one of the biggest successes of these organisations
was procuring legal and recognised market spaces for Africans in the city (such as Guangda
where Chuck has his restaurant). It could be argued that these organisations have not only
asserted a common African identity in front of the local government, but throughout
their existence, they have been functioning as sites where individuals and collective placeand community-making efforts have converged, thus generating possibilities for senses
and structures of belonging to emerge (Figure 5).
Religious organisations
Besides community organisations (which have been, in general, locally articulated), religious
organisations (branches of wider transnational spiritual networks and economies) have also
emerged as a central element for place-making and structures of belonging amongst Africans
in Guangzhou. Sunday is, for Tony, Chuck, and almost any other African I have spoken to,
serious church day. Charismatic and Pentecostal Christian congregations, alongside the
less popular, government-sanctioned, schismatic Chinese Catholic church, are highly frequented by foreigners in the city. Tony, for instance, attends the Chinese Christian

Feeling at home in the Chocolate City 253

congregation that his wife belongs to in the early morning; later, he goes to the Nigerian Fellowshipthe Catholic Charismatic Renewal. Chuck, on the other hand, since coming to
China has abandoned the Catholic church and joined the ranks of the thriving Pentecostal
congregations of Guangzhou. Pentecostalisma rising religion in China and almost everywhere else in the Christian worldseems particularly appealing to young Africans in the
city. Chuck explains that it is less official, and that the issues that are discussed during
the congregation really relate to the context and challenges they face while living in China
the opportunity for personal re-establishment in Asia is a central element in Pentecostal discourse. Paradoxically, many Africans are discovering a new type of Gospel in post-socialist
twenty-first century China. Most Pentecostal congregations are semi-clandestineillegal,
but tolerated by local authorities so long as they do not bring Chinese citizens inand
pushed to the marginal settings of rented conference rooms in hotels and malls, as noted
before.
According to Tony, these Christian groups are vital for newcomers as they offer ways for
networking and entering communities. Most of the churches, however, belong to transnational religious networks, and in some cases individuals attending the services were referred
to particular congregations by members in other locations. Indeed, most of the Pentecostal
churches in Guangzhou are connected to other cities in China, Asia, Africa and Europe.
While these organisations structure belonging at the local level (through chains of social
relationships), much of their meanings, and imaginations, are transferred translocally and
transnationally.
At the collective level, these community and religious organisations operate as networks of support, structuring opportunities for individuals to make sense of their sojourn
in Guangzhou. The possibilities for the existence of these networks rely highly on the catering networks and the translocal subeconomic processes described in the first part of this
article. The intersections between individuals, collectives and economies generate assemblage-like formations, in which the local, translocal and transnational processes discussed
throughout this article intersect and transgress each other. In short, I claim that the connections resulting from these assemblages nurture structures/spaces of belonging crucial in
the process of the reproducibility of African presence in the city.
Some extra thoughts (as a way of a conclusion)
Dengfeng, or the Chocolate City, is a place-based site constantly reproduced by the frictions
between local and circulating populations. I like to think of Dengfeng as a processa site continuously linked, delinked and re-linked by people, economies and their cultures, to other
locales. In this sense, Dengfeng is a node in a network of economies and culturesa translocality, to use Arjun Appadurais (1996) term. If we follow Appadurais conceptualisation
of (trans)locality, then Dengfeng is not only a neighbourhood (a situated space) where locality
is variably realised (Appadurai 1996, 179) but a space where multiple forms of circulation (of people, goods, technologies, and imaginations, etc.) have generated extended multiscalar connections involving several other localities. In these days, increasingly, the (re)
production of locality seems to be more obviously translocal/transnational. Translocalities
are not only conceptualisations, however. They can be found out there (or at least
mapped down). In short, the relationships structuring translocalities occur in cartographical
plains (they are place-based) but they are also ungrounded (McKay 2004)buoyant assemblages of relationships and connections: networks.
As a translocality, Dengfeng has manifold functions. The multiple activities taking place
there, for instance, have the capacity to organise sense-making narratives of a strong and
enduring African presence in the citythus opening up possibilities for the (re)production
of Sino-African translocal assemblages and for multiple senses of belonging to emerge.

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Moreover, the networks that nurture the emergence of the translocal/transnational practices
described in this article extend along complex pathways and across local, provincial, and
national borders and imaginaries. In this way, spaces such as Dengfeng (although physically
bound within a nation-state) are structured by myriad sets of relationships that in their interactions pay respect to no boundary. Finally, as a local, translocal and/or transnational site, the
so-called Chocolate City is crucial to make sense not only of the place-making strategies
and processes of belonging that Africans have been structuring but also about the ways in
which the multiple Chinese economic systems have been adapting to, intersecting with,
and transgressing the requirements set up by the process of Chinas re-articulation as a
key global player.
Adams Bodomo (2010) has made a forecast that has left more than one scholar frowning.
Based on the pace of African arrivals in China and the ways in which they have been mixing
with Chinese, he contends that Africans are sowing the seeds for the emergence of a SinoAfrican ethnic group in less than a hundred years time (Bodomo 2010, 694). Africans, he
argues, have come to stay. Anyone that knows a little about China knows how instability
and uncertainty are the great enemies when trying to elucidate the future of what we now
know as the Peoples Republic. As such, no one can really deny (or support) Bodomos claim.
As most of my contacts in Guangzhou argue, China is not an easy place. I have not found
any African yet that thinks of China as his/her home. There are many hurdles. Nonetheless, many believe that with time and politics these hurdles will diminish and they will be
able to call China home. Chuck, for one, is hopeful that the Chinese government will eventually yield to the pressures of globalisation and allow for a full inclusion of foreigners into
the Chinese social system. This remains to be seen. If his hopes are not realised, he will go
somewhere else, but not back to Nigeria. Tony, on the other hand, claims that there is no
way for an Igbo man to call home any place other than eastern Nigeria. He now has more
friends in China than in his country, however. His plans are to raise his children in Guangzhou, then send them to Nigeria to learn English in high school, before bringing them back to
China for university. Will they be part of the first generation of Sino-Africans in the PRC? Will

Figure 6.

Will there be a Sino-African future? (Photo by author).

Feeling at home in the Chocolate City 255

contemporary African presence in China fade away after a few decades? Will current transformations lead China to embrace an even more multi-ethnic (transnational) society? These
are serious questions that need to be considered. To start answering them, I propose to use
this case study as a platform to discuss how African and Chinese national, ethnic and cultural
identities are being reworked and renegotiated in the context of diasporic cultural globalisation. I suggest that we strive to generate a framework to better understand the movements of
people across these two civilisations that moves away from methodological approaches that
rely on binary divisions such as South/North and origin/destination. Furthermore, echoing
Kuan-Hsing Chens (2010) call for the decentring of knowledge production, I contend that we
need to open up our theorisations to allow for the discussion/understanding of transnational
movement/mobilities and (perhaps) migration in non-western, non-liberal democracy,
canvasses (Figure 6).

Notes
1. Mostly phones, motorcycles, garments, steel products and machinery carried out predominantly by individual exporters.
2. Time and again I have been asked about what kind of low-paid labour are Africans undertaking in China.
There seems to be a lingering assumption about Africans attempting to become blue-collar or farm workers.
In a conference last year, a Korean academic of migration was adamant in suggesting that Africans were
working in the fields of China, growing food, and displacing Chinese from low-paid jobs. This is far from
reality. In all my years in China, I have never meet one single African looking for a job growing vegetables.
Actually, one of my Sudanese contacts here once told me: the future is in the Chinese economy, we Africans
all come to do business here, and we bring a lot of money and expertise in trading. Americans my age, on the
other hand, come to China to teach English to children. Who do you think will profit more from Chinas
rise?
3. Although these subeconomies often have strong ethnic affiliations, I do not define them as strictly ethnic
economies as I conceptualise them as operating within multiethnic assemblages on translocal and transnational scalesand not only within one ethnic identity registry.
4. African students demonstrated in the streets of Beijing in mid-1986 against what they saw as an oppressive
environment and unfriendly people (Snow 1989).

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Special terms
Chengzhongcun
Dengfengcun
Guangyuanxilu
Hanzu
Huizu

Shanzhai
Tianxiudasha
Taojin
Xiaobeilu
Weiwuerzu

Authors biography
Roberto Castillo is a PhD candidate in Cultural Studies at Lingnan University, Hong Kong. Roberto is originally
from Mexico but has been living, working and researching in the Asian region since 2006. Besides Cultural
Studies, his training is in Journalism, International Relations, Political Science and History. Since 2009, when
he was working as an editor for Xinhua News Agency in Beijing, he became highly interested in the increasing
presence of foreigners in China and their transnational connections. In 2010, while on a Masters degree in The
University of Sydney, Roberto started doing cultural research about Africans in Guangzhou. He also administers a website dedicated to the wider field of Africans in China at www.africansinchina.net.
Contact address: Cultural Studies Department, Lingnan University, 8 Castle Road, Fu Tei, Hong Kong SAR,
China. Email: castillo.roberto@gmail.com