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Begin New Search Publishing Institution German Institute of Global and Area Studies Publication Year within 10 Years

81. The Social Construction of Guangzhou as a Translocal Trading Place

Author:
Angelo Gilles
Publication Date:
12-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
Guangzhou has become a key destination for sub-Saharan African traders. These traders have established multilocal forms of business organisation and, in so doing, have developed diverse prac- tices to overcome geographical, political and cultural boundaries. This paper focuses on these practices, looking at the ways in which the movements, relations and interactions within these organisational formations are produced, transformed and lived. A close ethnograph- ic examination was made of the livelihoods of 33 African traders from 13 sub-Saharan African countries. Through the concept of trans- locality, the organisational formations of these Africans are conceptu- alised as links between different places on a larger geographical scale; these links then meet on a local scale in the specific place of Guang- zhou. Following a relational understanding of spatial constructions in social science, these links are conceptualised as one of the main drivers for the social construction and transformation of the city as a trans- local trading place.
Topic:
Regional Cooperation, Culture, Urban, and Local
Political Geography:
Africa, China, and Asia

82. Healthcare-Seeking Practices of African and Rural-to-Urban Migrants in Guangzhou

Author:
Tabea Bork-Huffer
Publication Date:
12-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
Taking the examples of Chinese rural-to-urban migrant and African migrant businesspeople in Guangzhou, this article inquires into the commonalities and differences in the health status and health- care-seeking practices of both groups. While both populations of migrants are diverse and heterogeneous, there are many commonali- ties with regard to the challenges they face compared to the Chinese local population. Mixed-methods research frameworks and qualitative and quantitative methods were applied. While existing publications emphasise lacking financial access to healthcare, further individual and social factors account for migrants’ healthcare choices. Their access to healthcare can be improved only by introducing insurance schemes with portable benefits, providing localised and culturally adequate health services adapted to migrants’ specific needs and health risks, and enhancing patient orientation and responsiveness by health professionals.
Topic:
Migration, Health Care Policy, Urban, and Rural
Political Geography:
Africa, China, and Asia

83. Landscapes of Aspiration in Guangzhou’s African Music Scene: Beyond the Trading Narrative

Author:
Roberto Castillo
Publication Date:
12-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
This article is an exploration into the personal aspirations that converge in Guangzhou’s African music scene. I argue that despite being often traversed, articulated, fuelled, and constrained by econ- omies and economic discourses, aspirations are not necessarily eco- nomic or rational calculations. I contend that the overarching trading narrative about “Africans in Guangzhou” has left little space for issues of agency, emotion, and aspiration to be considered in their own right. Drawing on a year of continuous ethnographic fieldwork, I show how aspirations are crucial arenas where the rationales behind transnational mobility are developed, reproduced, and transmitted. Indeed, aspira- tions can be thought of as “navigational devices” (Appadurai 2004) that help certain individuals reach for their dreams. By bringing the analysis of aspirations to the fore, I intend to provide a more complex and nuanced landscape of the multiple rationales behind African presence in Southern China; promote a better understanding (both conceptually and empirically) of how individuals navigate their social spaces and guide their transnational journeys; and draw attention to the incessant frictions and negotiations between individual aspirations while on the move and the constraints imposed by more structural imperatives.
Topic:
Culture, Music, and popular culture
Political Geography:
Africa, China, and Asia

84. African Logistics Agents and Middlemen as Cultural Brokers in Guangzhou

Author:
Gordon Mathews
Publication Date:
12-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
This article begins by asking how African traders learn to adjust to the foreign world of Guangzhou, China, and suggests that African logistics agents and middlemen serve as cultural brokers for these traders. After defining “cultural broker” and discussing why these brokers are not usually Chinese, it explores this role as played by ten logistics agents/middlemen from Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. As logistics agents, these people help their customers in practically adjusting to Chinese life, and as middlemen they serve to grease the wheels of commerce be- tween African customers and Chinese suppliers. This is despite their own ambivalent views of China as a place to live. They play an essen- tial role in enabling harmonious relations between Africans and Chi- nese in Guangzhou, even though they see themselves not as cultural brokers but simply as businessmen.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Culture, Business, and Commerce
Political Geography:
Africa, China, and Asia

85. The Currency of Historicity in Hong Kong: Deconstructing Nostalgia through Soy Milk

Author:
Catherine S. Chan
Publication Date:
12-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
In the 1980s, as the end of the millennium approached, the production of nostalgia exploded all around the world. For Hong Kong, nostalgia became a reminder of the golden age that had trans- formed the city into one of the “Four Asian Tigers” in the decades following the end of the Second World War. While yearning for the better days of the past, Hong Kong coincidentally experienced desta- bilisation. As the rest of the world, especially the “baby boomers,” mourned the end of a productive era, Hong Kong locals were dis- turbed by the affirmation of the handover to China in 1997. In the context of these events, a creative rush to nostalgia in cultural manu- facturing swept across the city. In the hope of highlighting the uniqueness of nostalgic production in Hong Kong, this study analyses two sets of TV commercials produced by local beverage company Vitasoy. Through the deconstruction of selected historical events, Vitasoy successfully reinvented its brand and, in contrast to general criticism of the concept, generated a positive connotation for nostal- gia on the path towards Hong Kong’s search for an identity.
Topic:
Media, Social Identities, and Nostalgia
Political Geography:
China, Asia, and Hong Kong

86. New Bottle, Old Wine: China’s Governance of Hong Kong in View of Its Policies in the Restive Borderlands

Author:
Bill Chou
Publication Date:
12-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
This paper reviews Beijing’s Hong Kong policy, arguing that the policy mirrors China’s policy towards its restive borderlands represented by Tibet and Xinjiang. The rule of Hong Kong and other borderlands in China will be understood in an analytical framework that highlights four broad policies of governing borderlands: prom- ises of a high degree of local autonomy; extension of politico-admin- istrative control; cultural assimilation; and economic integration and domination. These policies may be conceptualised within the term “coercion.” It is argued that before Hong Kong’s retrocession to China in 1997, the PRC’s approach to the territory, in comparison to its approaches to Tibet and Xinjiang, was the least coercive – that is, China initially promised Hong Kong a high degree of autonomy over domestic affairs. The degree of coercion was stepped up when Hongkongers were perceived as becoming increasingly alienated from the new regime.
Topic:
Culture, Borders, Local, Assimilation, Autonomy, and Domestic Policy
Political Geography:
China, Asia, and Hong Kong

87. Rebalancing China's Emergent Capitalism: State Power, Economic Liberalization and Social Upgrading

Author:
Christopher A. McNally, Boy Luthje, and Tobias ten Brink
Publication Date:
02-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
Over the past 35 years, China's economic development strategy relied on the extensive use of factors of production relatively abundant in China. These include labour, land and some mining resources (such as coal and rare earths), as well as mounting reserves of capital in the first decade of the twenty-first century. State-guided policies channelled these factors into an export- and investment-driven model of development that was highly successful in terms of aggregate GDP growth. This model also proved to be quite adaptive when the financial crisis originating in US mortgage markets reverberated globally in late 2008. China was then able to rapidly jumpstart a slowing economy with a massive government-led stimulus programme that relied heavily on state banks extending credit for real estate and infrastructure projects.
Political Geography:
China and Hawaii

88. Paradoxes of Prosperity in China's New Capitalism

Author:
Tobias ten Brink
Publication Date:
02-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
This article gives a broad characterization of China's political economy, as well as specific aspects of its socio-economic instabilities. With a focus on China's export-oriented industry sectors, concepts from comparative and international political economy are applied to show how the Chinese economy can be understood as a variegated form of state- permeated capitalism that at the same time is deeply integrated into world economic processes. The article goes on to portray the socio-economic dynamics, as well as the instabilities of China's new capitalism, that are at the root of the state leadership's attempts to turn away from a one-sided model of export and investment-driven growth. Thereby, a number of obstacles are revealed for the "rebalancing" of the economy: a continued dependence on exports, a lack of domestic consumer demand which impedes a significant "social" upgrading, the ongoing low- wage model for which there is no end in sight, the limits of the state's steering capacity and the weaknesses of its fragmented, competition- driven structure
Political Geography:
China

89. Diverging Trajectories: Economic Rebalancing and Labour Policies in China

Author:
Boy Luthje
Publication Date:
02-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
This paper develops a new approach to analyse labour relations at the level of companies, industries, and regions in China. Referring to Western and Chinese labour sociology and industrial relations theory, the author applies the concept of "regimes of production" to the context of China's emerging capitalism. This article focuses on China's modern core manufacturing industries (i.e. steel, chemical, auto, electronics, and textile and garment); it explores regimes of production in major corporations and new forms of labour-management cooperation, the growing inequality and fragmentation of labour policies within the modern sectors of the Chinese economy, consequences for further reform regarding labour standards, collective bargaining, and workers' participation.
Political Geography:
China

90. Moving Beyond Cheap Labour? Industrial and Social Upgrading in the Garment and LED Industries of the Pearl River Delta

Author:
Florian Butollo
Publication Date:
02-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
Based on field studies in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) in 2010 and 2011, specific paths of industrial upgrading in the garment and IT industries are identified. The analysis reveals that there exists a multiplicity of upgrading trajectories, all of which have different implications for skill development and the character of work. While the modernization of industries relies on the input of higher skilled work, primarily in the fields of R and marketing, this barely is the case with regard to manufacturing. While labour intensity in the examined cases is diminishing in absolute or relative terms, internal divisions between low-skilled and high-skilled work are reconfigured rather than overcome.
Political Geography:
China

91. The Local Government in Corporate Restructuring: Case Studies in Fractured Bargaining Relations

Author:
Kun-Chin Lin and Chan Shaofeng
Publication Date:
02-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
Through two illustrative case studies of enterprise reform in Henan Province, we examine the underlying political contentions behind the changing roles of local government in the process of the corporatization and asset restructuring of state-owned enterprises (SOE) starting in the late 1990s. As SOEs lose their ability to meet the multitude of resource demands from central and local officials, they become sites of inter-governmental conflicts that produce a no-win situation for the SOE and fiscal and social uncertainties for those communities trying to exit the socialist economy. Our first case study is Puyang municipal government, which leveraged its regulatory authority to exact heavy side-payments in return for not obstructing the corporatization of Zhongyuan Oilfield; the second case involves Zhengzhou city officials colluding with provincial bureaucrats and the state-appointed managers of the Yutong Bus Company in an insider privatization that effectively circumvented a specific Ministry of Finance prohibition.
Political Geography:
China

92. How Argentine Farmers Overpowered Monsanto: The Mobilization of Knowledge-users and Intellectual Property Regimes

Author:
Felipe Amin Filomeno
Publication Date:
03-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
Since the 1980s, governments and transnational corporations from core countries led by the United States have driven a global upward ratchet of intellectual property protection. In agriculture, this has meant strengthening the rights of seed companies over the plant varieties they develop and curtailing the rights of farmers over the seeds they cultivate. Exceptionally, from the 1990s to 2013, Argentine soy growers overcame the pressures from the seed industry, guaranteeing the right to freely save seeds of proprietary varieties from their own harvests for future cultivation. Based on a comparative historical analysis of conflicts over intellectual property on seeds in Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay from the 1990s to 2013, this study suggests that a successful mobilization of knowledge-users in struggles over intellectual property depends on (1) the organizational stability of their political representation, (2) the coordination between the organizations that represent them, (3) the existence of independent channels for the representation of knowledge-users most sensitive to royalty payments, and (4) their ability to produce a public discourse capable of drawing support from a broad coalition.
Political Geography:
United States, Brazil, and Argentina

93. "Should I Stay or Should I Go?" Explaining Political Ambition by Electoral Success in Brazil

Author:
Carlos Pereira and Lucia Rennó
Publication Date:
03-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
Why run for reelection when the logic and incentives of the political system leave no doubt that running for other offices is a better option? This paper focuses on the factors that influence both the choice of career and the electoral success of those who run for reelection and those who attempt to obtain other offices, using Brazil as a case study, a typically fragmented, multiparty environment with a strong executive. We argue that legislators run for reelection because it is the safest bet for them. The probability of winning is higher for those who attempt reelection than for those running for any other office. Because static ambition is conditioned by election results and not by the intrinsic desire to develop a career in the legislative branch, career paths do not necessarily lead to improvements in legislative professionalization and institutionalization. This finding contradicts theories that relate career paths to legislative institutionalization.
Political Geography:
Brazil

94. The Legalization of Dispute Resolution in Mercosur

Author:
Christian Arnold and Berthold Rittberger
Publication Date:
03-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
The Southern Common Market (Mercosur), the world's fourth-largest trading bloc, represents an intriguing yet under-researched case of a regional organization which has made significant advances in regional integration in the past decades, legalization being a central dimension of its integration process. In 2002, Mercosur's dispute settlement system was substantially revised by its four member states. Up until then, disputes among member states had been resolved by diplomatic negotiations and ad hoc tribunals with limited independence from the member-state governments. The reforms mark a significant advance in the legalization of this regional organization: a standing court with a more independent judiciary and improved access to the court's jurisdiction was established. In order to account for the shift towards more legalization of Mercosur, this article presents a rational institutionalist explanation and develops hypotheses about states' preferred levels of legalization (why), an account of the "timing" of qualitative shifts in legalization (when), and the institutional form that legalization decisions take (how).

95. Demise and Resurrection of a Dominant Party: Understanding the PRI's Comeback in Mexico

Author:
Gilles Serra
Publication Date:
03-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
Dominance by a single party can deteriorate the quality of political representation. Yet, surprisingly, voters sometimes support a formerly dominant party they had previously thrown out of power. As an important case, this essay studies the victory in the 2012 elections in Mexico of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). Why did voters give it a new opportunity to rule the country? Accusations of fraud have been insufficient to explain the party's victory, so this research looks for electoral explanations. The paper points to fatigue with the incumbent party; unsatisfying economic and security conditions; ineffective campaigns by both the National Action Party (PAN) and the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD); the PRI's popularity based on its governing experience; and a convincing PRI candidate who secured the conservative, rural, and poor voters. This conveys the mandate for Peña Nieto to produce tangible results without abandoning democracy. More broadly, these observations shed light on the perplexing phenomenon of formerly dominant parties making an electoral comeback.
Political Geography:
Mexico

96. Does Violence Pay? The Effect of Ethnic Rebellion on Overcoming Political Deprivation

Author:
Carlo Koos
Publication Date:
03-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
Studies have found that politically deprived groups are more likely to rebel. However, does rebellion increase the likelihood of achieving political rights? This article proposes that rebellion helps ethnic groups to overcome deprivation. I illustrate this by using a "typical" case (the Ijaw's struggle against the Nigerian government) to demonstrate how ethnic rebellion increases the costs for the government to a point where granting political rights becomes preferable to war. Further, I exploit time-series-cross-sectional data on deprived ethnic groups to show that rebellion is significantly associated with overcoming deprivation. The statistical analysis shows that democratic change is an alternative mechanism.
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, Political Violence, Ethnic Conflict, Poverty, and Armed Struggle
Political Geography:
Africa and Dhaka

97. Perceptions, Practices and Adaptations: Understanding Chinese–African Interactions in Africa

Author:
Karsten Giese
Publication Date:
03-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
Over the last few years, Sino-African relations have become a hot topic both in the general media and for scholars worldwide. Large parts of the global mass media are still engaged in painting the big picture of the relationship between China and Africa by conflating the multiple stakeholders and actors on both sides and generalizing about China's "neocolonialist" strategies vis-à-vis weak African states: its exploitation of African raw materials and populations, its support for non-democratic regimes and its undermining of all Western efforts for reforms across the continent. Where media reports transcend this stereotyping and homogenizing on the macro-level and portray Chinese–African encounters on the ground, it is power differentials, competition, tension and conflict between disempowered African locals and (at least economically) powerful Chinese – the latter as exoticized as alien "others" – that are often the focus of attention.
Political Geography:
Africa and China

98. Sino-African Encounters in Ghana and Nigeria: From Conflict to Conviviality and Mutual Benefit

Author:
Ben Lampert and Giles Mohan
Publication Date:
03-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
China's renewed engagement with Africa is often framed as a form of imperialism, with the growing number of Chinese migrants on the continent seen as an exploitative presence. Such claims have generally been based on little evidence, and where more detailed empirical studies have emerged, they tend to emphasise the tensions and conflicts that have arisen. Our research on Chinese migrants in Ghana and Nigeria suggests that while there are concerns about Chinese competition in the informal retail sector and the treatment of local labour in Chinese enterprises, narratives of apparent tension and conflict are often much more nuanced than is generally recognised. Furthermore, more convivial and cooperative relations have also emerged and these have facilitated important opportunities for Africans to benefit from the Chinese presence. However, while the presence of Chinese migrants in African socio-economic life can be more integrated and mutually beneficial than is often assumed, the ability of African actors to benefit from this presence is highly uneven, placing the politics of class at the centre of any understanding of Sino-African encounters.
Topic:
Development and Migration
Political Geography:
Africa, China, and Nigeria

99. Significant Others: Security and Suspicion in Chinese–Angolan Encounters

Author:
Cheryl Mei-ting Schmitz
Publication Date:
03-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
The sense of mystery around Chinese presences in Angola impels researchers to understand not only the empirical details of economic transactions and diplomatic partnerships but also the various ways in which the actors involved make sense of a novel social, political, and economic configuration. By drawing several ethnographic portraits of the social practices and discursive strategies at play in Chinese–Angolan relations, I show how, in a context of mutual uncertainty and suspicion, appeals to "security" play a central role. Instead of viewing Chinese and Angolans as two separate groups with opposed interests and lack of communication between them, I explore how participation in a shared context generates common modes of explanation. Moreover, I propose a parallel analysis of state-level negotiations alongside everyday social encounters to consider how a political economic partnership between China and Angola is lived through the everyday negotiations of Chinese and Angolan residents in Luanda.
Political Geography:
China, Angola, and Luanda

100. The Chinese Presence in Burkina Faso: A Sino-African Cooperation from Below

Author:
Guive Khan Mohammad
Publication Date:
03-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
Burkina Faso currently has no diplomatic relationship whatsoever with the People's Republic of China. Engaged in cooperation with Taiwan since 1994, it is one of only three African countries not a part of the Forum on China–Africa Cooperation. This unusual situation has produced a unique manifestation of the Chinese presence in Burkina Faso, where the estimated 600 Chinese migrants are primarily private entrepreneurs. This phenomenon of "globalization from below" – or, this migration of entrepreneurs that transcends the absence of diplomatic relations – creates new intimate social relations between the Burkinabe and Chinese people who come into contact with each other. Far from simply turning Chinese and Burkinabe into economic competitors, these relations have also led to the emergence of many forms of interpersonal and business cooperation. In this paper, I therefore demonstrate how Sino-African cooperation from below has developed in Burkina Faso, which stands in radical contrast to the latter's cooperation with Taiwan, which takes place almost exclusively on a broader state-to-state level. The empirical evidence of this study is drawn from field survey interviews and observations of both Chinese and Burkinabe entrepreneurs in Burkina Faso between 2010 and 2011.
Political Geography:
Africa, China, and Tanzania