“The Chinese” in Nigeria: Discursive Ethnicities and (Dis)embedded Experiences

2021 ◽  
pp. 089124162098683
Author(s):  
Allen Hai Xiao ◽  
Shaonan Liu
Keyword(s):  
Discursive Practices ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
Chinese Migrants ◽  
China Studies ◽  
Discursive Field ◽  
Inductive Analysis

In the emerging Africa–China studies, ethnography has been employed to demystify the monolithic Chinese presence in Africa. Drawing on recent concerns about “discourse” in ethnographies of Chinese migrants in Africa, this article recommends the exploration of “discursive ethnicities”: a term coined to frame a conceptualization of ethnicity that, while embedded in migrant experiences, is embodied through discursive practices. Based on inductive analysis of ethnographic fieldwork with Chinese migrants, we propose a framework of discursive ethnicities in the discursive field of “the Chinese” in Nigeria, in which specific subethnicities (Hongkongese, Taiwanese, Fujianese, etc.) emerge, change, or are dismissed, alongside other-ethnicities that are embodied in narrating Nigerians in specific ways as mirrors of Chinese individuals’ self-ethnicities. We also discuss how both embedded and disembedded experiences contribute to embodied discursive Chinese ethnicities. The article concludes that “discursive ethnicities” provides a nonessentialist means of understanding the cognition of ethnicity and discourse in migrant experiences.

scholarly journals What matters? The role of values in transformations toward sustainability: a case study of coffee production in Burundi

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Milda Nordbø Rosenberg
Keyword(s):  
Vital Role ◽  
Ecological Systems ◽  
New Materialism ◽  
Discursive Practices ◽  
Coffee Production ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
Dynamic Relations ◽  
Participatory Observation

AbstractThis paper examines the role of values in transformations toward sustainability. Values, generally defined as what people deem to matter, are increasingly gaining interest in and outside of academia. For example, sustainability aligns with specific values such as dignity, equality, safety, and harmony for people and nature. However, current approaches to values are mind-matter dualistic, and therefore failing to honor the inherently dynamic relations of socio-ecological systems. Drawing on new materialism, I explore values as part of the relations that make this world and propose to consider values as material-discursive practices. Ethnographic fieldwork was done in 2017 with coffee producers in Burundi who aimed to transform production by caring for the coffee and people that grow it. Based on interviews and participatory observation, I present how values were integral to transforming the relational aspects of coffee production. In this study, values of togetherness, care, dignity, and faith were dominant and were found to reconfigure the socio-ecological system of coffee production. I argue that values are inseparable from, and hence co-productive of, the material world that we experience and play a vital role in sustainability transformations.

scholarly journals “Unseeing” Chinese Students in Japan: Understanding Educationally Channelled Migrant Experiences

2015 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 125-154 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jamie Coates
Keyword(s):  
Economic Inequality ◽  
Chinese Students ◽  
Chinese Student ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
Chinese Migrants ◽  
Marginalised Groups ◽  
Migrant Integration ◽  
Educational Migration ◽  
The City

Chinese migrants are currently the largest group of non-Japanese nationals living in Japan. This growth is largely the result of educational migration, positioning many Chinese in Japan as student-migrants. Based on 20 months’ ethnographic fieldwork in Ikebukuro, Tokyo's unofficial Chinatown, this paper explores the ways in which the phenomenology of the city informs the desire for integration amongst young Chinese living in Japan. Discussions of migrant integration and representation often argue for greater recognition of marginalised groups. However, recognition can also intensify vulnerability for the marginalised. Chinese student-migrants’ relationship to Ikebukuro's streets shows how young mobile Chinese in Tokyo come to learn to want to be “unseen.” Largely a response to the visual dynamics of the city, constituted by economic inequality, spectacle, and surveillance, the experiences of young Chinese students complicate the ways we understand migrants’ desires for recognition and integration.

Gender in the Discursive Practices of the Jehovah’s Witnesses in the Former East Germany

2011 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 260-270 ◽  
Author(s):  
Małgorzata Rajtar
Keyword(s):  
Gender Roles ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
East Germany ◽  
Religious Discourse ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Discursive Practices ◽  
Jehovah’S Witnesses ◽  
Jehovah's Witnesses ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
And Gender

The author analyzes the construction of gender and gender roles among the Jehovah’s Witnesses in the former East Germany. From a religious point of view, wives and women in general are subordinate to their husbands, fathers, etc. Within a family and in congregations men are expected to “take the lead” and are responsible for their wives and children. In the former German Democratic Republic this religious discourse competed with the egalitarian and secular discourse of the socialist state, which emphasized the necessity for women to work and the importance of public childcare. Thus, the author addresses the question: how and to what extent did this official state discourse influence the Witnesses’ discursive practices on gender during socialism and until the present day? The author has based her article on extensive ethnographic fieldwork on the Jehovah’s Witnesses in Saxony, eastern Germany.

scholarly journals Sacred Secularities: Ritual and Social Engagement in a Global Buddhist China

Religions ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (11) ◽  
pp. 338 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jens Reinke
Keyword(s):  
Social Engagement ◽  
Global Network ◽  
Asian Continent ◽  
Highly Educated ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
Chinese Migrants ◽  
New Generation ◽  
Social Engagements ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Temple

The Taiwanese order Fo Guang Shan is a major representative of renjian Buddhism. The order maintains a global network of over 200 temples and practice centers that spans over not only most of the Asian continent, but also includes Oceania, the Americas, Europe and Africa. This article examines how the order negotiates the modern secular/religious divide by considering the example of its flagship diaspora temple Hsi Lai Temple in L.A., California. Particular attention is given to two prevalent religious practices at the temple—ritual and social engagements—that are often associated with the ‘religious’ and the ‘secular’ respectively. Based on multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork, the article aims to assess the relationship between the two practices and discusses how they resonate with a new generation of highly educated, affluent Chinese migrants.

Performing “China in Africa” for the West: Chinese migrant discourses in Angola

2018 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cheryl Mei-ting Schmitz
Keyword(s):  
Trading Partner ◽  
The West ◽  
American Anthropologist ◽  
Chinese Speakers ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
Chinese Migrants

As China’s largest trading partner in Africa and host to an estimated 250,000 Chinese migrants, Angola is one of the most significant sites for analyzing China–Africa relations today. This paper, based on ethnographic fieldwork in both Angola and China conducted in 2013–2014, analyzes conversations about Chinese globalization in Africa to show how Chinese speakers spoke performatively about a politically charged phenomenon in which they found themselves implicated. Encounters between Chinese expatriates, a European journalist and an American anthropologist reveal the assumptions underlying which questions get posed about Chinese interventions in Africa and how Chineseness is articulated in response.

scholarly journals Global Authenticity, Local Authority: Epistemic Power, Discursive Geographies, and the Creation of Civil Society Knowledge Networks

2021 ◽  
pp. 209-232
Author(s):  
E. Fouksman
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Local Authority ◽  
Civil Society Organizations ◽  
Knowledge Networks ◽  
Epistemic Communities ◽  
Discursive Practices ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
The Usa ◽  
The Creation

AbstractHow do networks of civil society organizations spread and contest ideas around the globe? This chapter focuses the ways practitioners within development-focused civil society organizations use spatial discursive practices to label, organize, defend, and undermine the spread and application of ideas. In particular, I look at the way members of civil society organizations defend and promote ideas as authentic and/or authoritative, navigating the need to have their knowledge and practices accepted both by beneficiaries and elite international epistemic communities. I draw on ethnographic fieldwork with two multi-sited case studies of civil society organizations, ranging from global foundations in the USA and Switzerland to their national and regional NGO partners in Kenya and Kyrgyzstan. Actors in both of these networks defend a varied array of ideas that underpin their ecological interventions through invocations of local particularity and global expertise. This chapter thus addresses the ways epistemic communities are formed and knowledge is produced and legitimized via discursive geographies and identities.

scholarly journals A Journey to the West. Observations on the Chinese Migration to Italy

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valentina Pedone
Keyword(s):  
Identity Construction ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Scientific Literature ◽  
The West ◽  
Migration Flow ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
Chinese Migrants ◽  
Chinese Migration ◽  
Chinese Trade

This volume presents the results of a number of studies about Chinese migration to Italy carried out between 2003 and 2013. The data discussed in the different chapters were collected mostly through ethnographic fieldwork carried out both in China and in Italy. Covered topics include: the organization of Chinese trade activities in Italy, the perception of Italy as a country of migration, identity construction among Italian-born Chinese, language use among Chinese migrants in Italy and literary works written by Chinese in Italy. In addition to the chapters devoted to the discussion of data gathered from fieldwork, an introductory chapter based on a review of the scientific literature is offered in order to provide the reader with a basic background about the characteristics of a migration flow that has lasted nearly a century.

scholarly journals ON THE QUESTION OF DISCURSIVE THEORY OF ONOMASTICS

2021 ◽  
pp. 245-261
Author(s):  
E. U. Pozdnyakova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Discursive Practices ◽  
Single Word ◽  
Discursive Field ◽  
Discursive Approach

The article deals with the relevance of a new discursive approach to onomastic vocabulary. The onym is considered as a unit that represents a compressed text, which can be expanded under certain conditions. In addition, reverse processes are possible - the compression of discourse to a minimum set of lexical units (a single word or a phrase). There are four important components in the discursive field of an onym: the nominator (the author of the name - N), an onym (the name of the object - O), the recipient (the perceiving subject - P) and the discourse-text (D) connected with an onym. We explain the discursive nature of the onym through the concept of the discursive field, which is a combination of all texts, existing in discours, included in the nominative situation both initially (in the process of nominating an object) and involved in communication during the functioning of the onym in the discursive practices of native speakers.

scholarly journals THE IMPACT OF CHINESE BUSINESS ON MARKET ENTRY IN GHANA AND SENEGAL

Africa ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 83 (4) ◽  
pp. 646-669 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurence Marfaing ◽  
Alena Thiel
Keyword(s):  
Economic Activity ◽  
Market Entry ◽  
Market Order ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
Chinese Migrants ◽  
Chinese Business ◽  
Start Up ◽  
Religious Networks ◽  
The Impact ◽  
New Situation

ABSTRACTIn this article we analyse the currently observable changes in the norms and orders that regulate market entry in the Ghanaian and Senegalese trade sectors. We portray the three distinct ways in which – facilitated by the presence of independent Chinese migrants – previously excluded actors are now able to enter the market, without needing to rely on the networks that typically mediate access to start-up capital needs – such as selling space, marketing skills and, not least, capital stock. Creatively appropriating the new situation, these previously excluded actors have thus found in the Chinese presence a means of bypassing restrictive economic, social and religious networks. In-depth ethnographic fieldwork in 2011 and 2012 has revealed that while aspiring traders from Ghana and Senegal applaud the newly opened pathways to gainful economic activity, more established local merchants in the urban centres of both countries feel and express, in contrast, a discontent with the growing Chinese presence – as they see their role as gatekeepers of the market order being increasingly undermined.

The Cruel Optimism of Mobility

2019 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 469-497
Author(s):  
Jamie Coates
Keyword(s):  
Good Life ◽  
Popular Discourse ◽  
Rhetorical Construction ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
The Past ◽  
Chinese Migrants ◽  
The World ◽  
Transnational Migrants ◽  
Government Level ◽  
Lauren Berlant

Over the past thirty years, moving overseas has been a positively valued aspiration in China. On both a government level, and within popular discourse, migration has been propagated as a means to be better citizens, and a better nation, resonating with families’ desire for a better life. However, there are consequences for those who move, in terms of belonging and how they imagine their life projects. This article extends the established scholarship on mobility out of China by comparing the rhetorical construction of mobility with the experiences of Chinese migrants in Japan. Based on ethnographic fieldwork among educationally channeled Chinese migrants in Tokyo, I show how the imaginaries that shape migrant projects are constituted by conflicting aspirations and desires. The mismatch between daily experiences and discursively informed perceptions of what constitutes a “good life” and “success,” in many senses resemble what Lauren Berlant has called “cruel optimism.” Educationally channeled migration out of China is posited as a desirable object-idea that is “cruel” because the “cluster of promises” that constitute its “optimism” cannot be reconciled with the mobile lifeworlds of many Chinese transnational migrants. Due to the impossibility of simultaneously achieving the promises of success, pleasing one’s family, and attaining a sense of cosmopolitanism, many migrants resign themselves to the instabilities of mobile life. Their experiences are suggestive of the consequences of a world that increasingly celebrates mobility, with implications for how “being at home in the world” is imagined today.

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