Istanbul, Turkey

Participants:
Claudia Bülbül, Kadir Has University, Turkey (TÜBİTAK project)
Güler Canbulat, Istanbul Gelisim University, Turkey
Roberto Castillo, Lingan University, China
Lesley Braun, Basel University, Switzerland  

The presence of Africans in Turkey, both temporary and permanent residents, points to the ways in which Turkey is becoming not only a corridor of migration but also a destination. This workshop attends to the ways in which Africans are embedding themselves in Turkish society, through work and other activities. Further, we will also consider the role of technology in facilitating mobility, as well as entrepreneurial and cultural activities. 

Philadelphia, PA

Panel at the African Studies Association’s 65th Annual Meeting

Lesley Nicole Braun (organizer)
Kudus Adebayo, University of Ibadan (organizer)
Vivian Lu, Fordham University (participant)
Naaborle Sackeyfio, Miami University (discussant)

China has been a central foreign investment partner in many African countries for several decades, brokering agreements that impact both trade and migration policies. Corridors of migration between Africa and China have been characterized by complex flows of goods, ideas, technologies and people. These flows have connected urban nodes and space in multiple directions and are producing strategies of departures and returns which are themselves shaped by changing borders and global public health dynamics. Such broader geopolitical dynamics associated with global commodity and value chains are brought into view through the lens of smaller commercial networks managed and led by individuals themselves. The research presented in this panel will draw on ethnographic data that reveals new chains of connections and dislocations produced in and through Sino-African engagement. Set against the backdrop of the global Covid-19 pandemic, this panel is interested in how the mobility of both people and commodities between several African countries and China has been affected by recent pandemic disruptions. We will address such questions as: What are some of the new rhythms of trade and commodity circulation produced by the global pandemic? How do individuals themselves understand their own positions within commodity chains? What informs local discourses relating to commodity qualities? How may the pandemic response in China be understood as constituting an opportunity for African migrants in Chinese cities to migrate back to Africa?  

1) Vivian Lu “Commercial aesthetics and embodied geopolitics along China-Nigeria commodity routes”

2) Lesley Braun “Dislocated trade in Kinshasa, DRC and traders’ emergent strategies”

3) Kudus Adebayo “Triggering delayed transition: A life history analysis of racialised epidemic management and return migration along Nigeria-China migration corridor”

Colonge, Germany 

Abstract: China has become the principal source country for manufactured goods in Africa. Some of the Chinese imports have replaced locally manufactured products while others compete against imports from countries outside Africa. This panel examines how the Covid-induced disruptions in import from China have influenced African production and trading systems. The flows of goods, people, and money between African countries and China have mutually sustained each other. Human mobility between Africa and China virtually halted after the Covid pandemic due to strict travel prohibitions on the part of the Chinese. What happened with imports from China during this period? Have importers found new ways of organizing sourcing, quality assurance, packing, and payments for goods to compensate for blockades against travel between factories in China and end markets in Africa? Or have they redirected their purchases to competing global trade hubs, such as Istanbul, Dubai, and Bangkok? Similarly, we ask whether manufacturers and artisanal producers based in African countries, including Chinese-owned production facilities, were able to profit from the supply chain disruptions in Chinese goods and (re)gain market shares. In cases where limited supply from China provided new market opportunities for locally produced goods, to what extent can these advantages be sustained once trade normalizes? Furthermore, intensified economic entanglements with China mean that African producers depend on Chinese inputs, both machinery and intermediary materials for production. Considering this, is it possible or desirable to envision a future for production in Africa that is decoupled from China?

Panelists: Fikayo Akeredolou (Oxford University) Heidi Haugen (University of Oslo), Mark Obeng (University of Ghana, Legon) Lesley Braun (Basel University) Ibrahima Niang (University of Cheikh Anta Diop of Dakar) Qidi Feng (University of Amsterdam)