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Indian Ocean as Memory Space: Islam in Indonesia and South Africa

In 2015, during a research stint in South Africa, I visited the Bo-Kaap Museum in Cape Town, South Africa together with some colleagues from the AFRASO project. The museum “showcases local Islamic culture and heritage” associated with Cape Malays that were brought to South Africa as slaves by the Dutch East Indies Company. It was then that I found out about a prominent saint, Sheikh Yusuf, who was an Indian Ocean Muslim scholar and preacher of Islam from Indonesia.

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P1-D: Trade Networks and African Entrepreneurship in Asia

The project‘s objective is to examine the trade networks between Africa and Asia with a focus on the economic ventures of Africans in Asia, in particular of traders and entrepreneurs from Mali, Cameroon, and Nigeria in the Asian countries of Malaysia, China, Thailand, and Vietnam. It investigates the way in which African and Asian traders cooperate and negotiate as well as the effect of this cooperation and the import and export of products on the Asian and African markets, consumers, and social practices related to them. The focus on the cultural and economic repercussions of trade, as it is perceived from the local actors’ point of view, provides a specifically anthropological perspective on the organization of trade networks, the development of entrepreneurial strategies, and the establishment of African diasporic communities in Asian countries. The comparative analysis of the characteristics of their activities are reflected in the political, economic, and legal frameworks in which African traders operate in the different Asian countries.

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The Bandung Spirit is Alive – Really?

Asian and African leaders from more than 80 countries gathered in Indonesia in late April to mark the 60th anniversary of the landmark Bandung Conference that helped to forge a common identity among emerging states.

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S2-A: Handelsnetzwerke und Migration zwischen Afrika und Asien

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Handelsnetzwerke und Migration zwischen Asien und Afrika bestehen schon seit langer Zeit, sind aber durch die Öffnung Chinas und das chinesische Engagement in Afrika zunehmend im Fokus der westlichen Öffentlichkeit. Über die konkreten kulturellen und wirtschaftlichen Wechselwirkungen aus lokaler Sicht, ist jedoch bisher nur wenig bekannt. Neben makropolitischen Dynamiken beeinflusst der kulturelle Hintergrund der Beteiligten die Organisation von Handelsnetzwerken und die Entwicklung unternehmerischer Strategien. Das Vorhaben geht den Unterschieden zwischen afrikanischen und asiatischen Netzwerken nach. Wir fragen, welche Netzwerke (von Familien bis zu internationalen Unternehmen), welche Sektoren des Handels übernehmen und wie deren Entscheidungsprozesse von der Interaktion mit Angehörigen der anderen Kultur geprägt werden.
Ein Schwerpunkt unsere Forschung gruppiert sich um die Waren selbst. Obwohl Konsumgüter das Gros der afrikanischen Importe aus Asien ausmachen, werden auch Dienstleistungen wie tertiäre Bildung in dem afrikanisch / asiatischen Handelsgeflecht angeboten. Es stellt sich die Frage, in welchen Regionen sich Händler auf welche Angebote und Dienstleistungen spezialisieren. Auch ist kaum bekannt, welche Waren und Dienstleistungen neben Rohstoffen aus Afrika nach Asien gelangen und wie dieser Handel konkret auf der persönlichen Ebene stattfindet. Den Märkten folgen und folgten Menschen und Ideen. Welche Formen des Handels unterstützen Staaten und welche ideologischen und historischen Themen bestimmen die Politik dieser Länder? Welche Migrationserfahrungen machen Afrikaner/Asiaten im jeweiligen fremden Kontext und wie unterscheiden diese sich von den Erfahrungen, die zum Beispiel in Europa gemacht werden? Wie hat sich der Handel verändert und welche neuen Netzwerke haben sich gebildet? Welche Diskurse haben sich über die Aktivitäten der Asiaten in Afrika entwickelt? Wie bewertet man in Afrika einerseits die als positiv erlebten Entwicklungen im Bereich der Infrastruktur und der Güterversorgung, und andererseits die Präsenz der Fremden, die Konkurrenz für afrikanische Unternehmen darstellen und deren Fremdheit oftmals negativ belegt ist? Spielen diese Bewertungen für die Handelsnetzwerke überhaupt eine Rolle?
Die Feldforschungen werden in Westafrika (Kamerun, Mali) und im südlichen Afrika sowie in Indonesien, Malaysia, Japan und China durchgeführt. Das breite regionale Spektrum lässt einen Vergleich zwischen historisch und kulturell unterschiedlichen Regionen zu. Zusammengeführt wird diese Pluralität durch die enge Zusammenarbeit der beteiligten Wissenschaftler und die aufeinander abgestimmten Fragestellungen. Ute Röschenthaler untersucht in Kooperation mit Antoine Socpa in Douala und Yaounde, kamerunische und asiatische Netzwerke, in Bamako in Kooperation mit Birama Diakon die Netzwerke malischer und chinesischer Händler und gemeinsam mit Shigehiro Sassaki afrikanische Netzwerke in Japan. Mamadou Diawara erforscht malische Migranten in Indonesien und Rückkehrer in Bamako. Malaysische Bildungsunternehmer im südlichen Afrika werden von Sandra Manickam untersucht und Matthias Gruber untersucht die alten und neuen chinesisch/südafrikanischen Handelsnetzwerke in Südafrika und China.

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Involvierte AFRASO Mitglieder: 

AFRASO Publications

Röschenthaler, Ute und Schulz, Dorothea ; 2016 ; Cultural Entrepreneurship in Africa ; Oxon / New York: Routledge

Talks and Lectures

Röschenthaler, Ute & Julia Binter ; Trade, crisis and cultural entrepreneurship in the Niger Delta and the Cross River Region ; Samstag, Oktober 3, 2015 ; Marburg
Diawara, Mamadou ; The Time-Tested Traditionist: Intellectual Trajectory and Mediation from the Early Empires to the Present Day. Landscapes, Sources and Intellectual Projects: Politics, History and the West African Past ; Donnerstag, November 12, 2015 bis Samstag, November 14, 2015 ; Department of African Studies and Anthropology (DASA) and Centre of West African Studies (CWAS), University of Birmingham
Ute Röschenthaler ; The History of Green Tea in Mali and Beyond ; Donnerstag, Mai 15, 2014 ; Goethe-Universität Frankfurt
Ute Röschenthaler ; The History of Green Tea in Africa ; Donnerstag, Dezember 18, 2014 ; Bejing University
Diawara, Mamadou ; The Call of the ‘Bush’: Malian Migrants on their Way to Asia ; Mittwoch, März 12, 2014 ; Kuala Lumpur
Diawara, Mamadou ; Seeing like scholars. Whose exile? Making a life in being at home and abroad ; Mittwoch, März 25, 2015 ; Kapstadt
Ute Röschenthaler ; Commercial Networks and Cultural Brokers: Cameroonian Traders in China ; Mittwoch, März 12, 2014 ; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Diawara, Mamadou ; China und Afrika, SoSe 2013 ; Goethe University Frankfurt
Röschenthaler, Ute; Haugen, Heide & Michaela Pelican ; Challenges to African entrepreneurship in Malaysia ; Donnerstag, Juli 9, 2015 ; Sorbonne, Paris
Ute Röschenthaler ; Brokers as Intermediaries in Commercial Trade Networks ; Sonntag, Dezember 14, 2014 ; Jinan University, Guangzhou
Röschenthaler, Ute ; Bewegung von Menschen und Gütern im globalen Kontext ; Mittwoch, Juli 1, 2015 ; Hannover
Diawara, Mamadou ; Asien in Afrika, WiSe 2014/15
Diawara, Mamadou ; Asia as Horizon and Home for West Africans from the 1980s ; Samstag, August 8, 2015 ; Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study
Diawara, Mamadou ; (Dis-)connections in Histories of African Studies on the Continent and Beyond, ; Freitag, Juli 10, 2015 ; Sorbonne, Paris

S2-A: Trade Networks and Migration Between Africa and Asia

Übersicht: 

While the activities of Africans in Asia are often overlooked; Asian – especially Chinese – engagement in Africa has become a focal point of interest in Western public discourse. This project explores the differences between the organization of African and Asian networks. It investigates the types of networks (from family to international enterprises), the sectors of trade and mutual impacts of different cultural practices on interactions and decisions. The focus on cultural and economic repercussion of trade, as it is perceived from the local actors’ point of view, allows to study the organization of trade networks, the development of entrepreneurial strategies, as well as the establishment of migrant trader communities.

The project’s focus on anthropological methodology and epistemological interest is the basis for the comparison within the project, even though the conditions in the research countries differ.

The key research questions of the project are as follows: What kind of trade do African and Asian states support? What are the ideological and historical themes that characterize the policies of these countries? What can be found out about the experiences of migration that Africans and Asians encounters in the respective foreign cultural context? Do these experiences differ from those made migrants in Europe? To which extent have these processes modified trade and contributed to the formation of new networks? What kind of discourses have been developed about the activities of Asians in Africa and vice versa? How do Africans evaluate the infrastructural development and the provision of goods in contrast to the increasing presence of strangers? How is competition for African enterprises created and whose cultural difference is often interpreted negatively? Do these evaluations have an impact on the trade networks? How is trade organized on the level of personal interaction?

One major research focus of the project lies on trade goods in order to find answers to these questions mentioned above. Following particular items like tea not only enables the project to understand supply chains from Chinese producers over traders in import and export to the market mechanisms in West African countries like Mali. This approach also reveals insight in the long history of trade and transformation of Green Tea from a mere product to a cultural practice, which is deeply rooted in Malian society today and becomes increasingly prominent in adjacent countries. A case study in Thailand among Malians, who trade with precious stones, revealed that Africans establish networks in Asia through modifying and adapting successful models that were developed in an African context. These activities give a clear idea about “African agency” in trade. Furthermore, they reverse simplistic notions of Africa only being the receiver of processed goods and exporting raw material.

Another focus of research are the activities of Chinese traders in South Africa. Thousands of Chinese traders arrived in the last 25 years from mainland China. While first-comers benefitted from the high demand in low-priced consumer goods; market saturation and macro-economic tendencies influence and transform the Chinese trader communities nowadays. Traders who have developed a sense for the demands in South Africa, found niches or were able to diversify their businesses, do have an advantage. These activities go often hand in hand with development of social, cultural and political ties in the host countries, where a relatively stable community of Chinese does already exist or is in the making. In all cases, the research showed that successful trade often depends on highly skilled brokers, not only in the economic arena, but also as cultural intermediaries. Researching interpersonal relationships allows to paint a profoundly more complex picture than mere generalizations of Asian/African dependencies, which this project aims to do.

Research is carried out in West Africa (Cameroon, Mali) and in South Africa as well as in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Japan, and China. The broad regional choice provides opportunities for the comparison of historically and culturally divergent regions.

The research is conducted by the following team of scholars:

Ute Röschenthaler researches in close cooperation with Antoine Socpa Cameroonian and Malaysian trade networks, in cooperation with Birama Diakon the network of Malian and Chinese traders in Mali and China, and with Shigehiro Sasaki African trade networks in Japan. Mamadou Diawara explores Malian migrants in Indonesia and returnees in Bamako. Matthias Gruber researches Chinese/South African trade networks in South Africa.


Kontakt: 

Ort: 

Involvierte AFRASO Mitglieder: 

AFRASO Publications

Röschenthaler, Ute und Schulz, Dorothea ; 2016 ; Cultural Entrepreneurship in Africa ; Oxon / New York: Routledge

Talks and Lectures

Röschenthaler, Ute & Julia Binter ; Trade, crisis and cultural entrepreneurship in the Niger Delta and the Cross River Region ; Samstag, Oktober 3, 2015 ; Marburg
Diawara, Mamadou ; The Time-Tested Traditionist: Intellectual Trajectory and Mediation from the Early Empires to the Present Day. Landscapes, Sources and Intellectual Projects: Politics, History and the West African Past ; Donnerstag, November 12, 2015 bis Samstag, November 14, 2015 ; Department of African Studies and Anthropology (DASA) and Centre of West African Studies (CWAS), University of Birmingham
Ute Röschenthaler ; The History of Green Tea in Mali and Beyond ; Donnerstag, Mai 15, 2014 ; Goethe-Universität Frankfurt
Ute Röschenthaler ; The History of Green Tea in Africa ; Donnerstag, Dezember 18, 2014 ; Bejing University
Diawara, Mamadou ; The Call of the ‘Bush’: Malian Migrants on their Way to Asia ; Mittwoch, März 12, 2014 ; Kuala Lumpur
Diawara, Mamadou ; Seeing like scholars. Whose exile? Making a life in being at home and abroad ; Mittwoch, März 25, 2015 ; Kapstadt
Ute Röschenthaler ; Commercial Networks and Cultural Brokers: Cameroonian Traders in China ; Mittwoch, März 12, 2014 ; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Diawara, Mamadou ; China und Afrika, SoSe 2013 ; Goethe University Frankfurt
Röschenthaler, Ute; Haugen, Heide & Michaela Pelican ; Challenges to African entrepreneurship in Malaysia ; Donnerstag, Juli 9, 2015 ; Sorbonne, Paris
Ute Röschenthaler ; Brokers as Intermediaries in Commercial Trade Networks ; Sonntag, Dezember 14, 2014 ; Jinan University, Guangzhou
Röschenthaler, Ute ; Bewegung von Menschen und Gütern im globalen Kontext ; Mittwoch, Juli 1, 2015 ; Hannover
Diawara, Mamadou ; Bangkok as a "Bush". Preliminary findings on African migrants facing Asia ; Dienstag, April 1, 2014 ; Thammasat University
Diawara, Mamadou ; Asien in Afrika, WiSe 2014/15
Diawara, Mamadou ; Asia as Horizon and Home for West Africans from the 1980s ; Samstag, August 8, 2015 ; Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study
Diawara, Mamadou ; (Dis-)connections in Histories of African Studies on the Continent and Beyond, ; Freitag, Juli 10, 2015 ; Sorbonne, Paris