Monday, October 26, 2015

Chinese Petty Traders In Nigeria (and a brief Yoruba lesson)

Chinese petty traders in Africa are always a fascinating subject - what drives a person to pick up and move to another country to try compete ferociously in a business with tiny profits? To help answer that question, hosts Winslow Robertson and Ms. Lina Benabdallah have invited to the pod Allen Xiao, a PhD student in Geography, with minor in African Studies, at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He was trained in anthropology in Hong Kong and his previous research focused on Chinese migration to Nigeria: he authored “In the Shadow of the States: The Informalities of Chinese Petty Entrepreneurship in Nigeria” which was published in the Journal of Current Chinese Affairs earlier this year. Now his interests lie in the making of multi-ethnic Lagos and shifting Yoruba identity, and to that end he has been learning Yoruba since 2014. Who are these Chinese petty traders in Nigeria and how do they fit into the Sino-Africa relationship?

Recommendations

1 comment: