South Korea

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 ; Saturday, October 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 ; Thursday, November 12, 2015 to Saturday, 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 ; Thursday, May 15, 2014 ; Goethe-Universität Frankfurt
Ute Röschenthaler ; The History of Green Tea in Africa ; Thursday, December 18, 2014 ; Bejing University
Diawara, Mamadou ; The Call of the ‘Bush’: Malian Migrants on their Way to Asia ; Wednesday, March 12, 2014 ; Kuala Lumpur
Diawara, Mamadou ; Seeing like scholars. Whose exile? Making a life in being at home and abroad ; Wednesday, March 25, 2015 ; Kapstadt
Ute Röschenthaler ; Commercial Networks and Cultural Brokers: Cameroonian Traders in China ; Wednesday, March 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 ; Thursday, July 9, 2015 ; Sorbonne, Paris
Ute Röschenthaler ; Brokers as Intermediaries in Commercial Trade Networks ; Sunday, December 14, 2014 ; Jinan University, Guangzhou
Röschenthaler, Ute ; Bewegung von Menschen und Gütern im globalen Kontext ; Wednesday, July 1, 2015 ; Hannover
Diawara, Mamadou ; Bangkok as a "Bush". Preliminary findings on African migrants facing Asia ; Tuesday, 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 ; Saturday, August 8, 2015 ; Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study
Diawara, Mamadou ; (Dis-)connections in Histories of African Studies on the Continent and Beyond, ; Friday, July 10, 2015 ; Sorbonne, Paris

S3-C: New Approaches to Negotiating Development: South Korean-African Interactions

Übersicht: 

Over the past decade, there has been a significant increase in the number of collaborative projects between South Korea and various countries in Africa, especially in the area of development cooperation. Both South Korean and African partners have stressed the perceived "win-win" nature of these new collaborative relations. Both sides have emphasized that the interactions are not merely focused on one-sided economic interests, such as raw material trade and investment, but rather that these interactions appear to represent a model for a more holistic relationship which also includes exchanges in the fields of culture and education. On the one hand the possibility of exporting its own development experiences is understood as an opportunity for South Korea to reposition itself as a player within the international community. On the other hand, the African partners have equally welcomed such new forms of cooperation as evidenced by the various “Looking East”-Policies that have been adopted in a significant number of countries across the African continent in recent years. Within this context, South Korea represents a particularly interesting development partner for these countries due to its recent development history that led to exceptionally fast economic growth and compressed modernization in the second part of the twentieth century. Moreover, the shared experiences of a colonial past as well as the acute socio economic deprivation may also be opening new avenues for cooperation between South Korea and (some) of its African partners. 

Within this context, the research project seeks to analyze emerging discourses and corresponding processes of negotiation in relation to concepts and practices of development in South Korea and two of its focus countries in Africa, Ethiopia and Kenya. This research investigates how emerging developmental concepts and goals and the resulting social (and national identity) dynamics are being formed in the context of development cooperation. Special focus lies on corresponding processes in the areas of culture and education.

This project will contribute to the on-going debate surrounding various concepts and models for development as well as their implementation in the form of policies and programs. Through its interdisciplinary approach (political science and cultural studies) and comparative research design spanning two continents, the project will provide new methodological and theoretical insights into the transnational process of negotiating development.

Kontakt: 

Ort: 

Involvierte AFRASO Mitglieder: 

AFRASO Publications

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Talks and Lectures

Eckl, Frauke; Mageza-Barthel, Rirhandu & Thubauville, Sophia (panel convenors) ; South Korean-Ethiopian Interactions ; Tuesday, August 25, 2015 ; Warsaw
Eckl, Frauke Katharina ; Living and Breathing Best Practices? South Korean Development Experiences in Ethiopian Higher Education ; Thursday, July 9, 2015 ; Sorbonne Universität, Paris
Eckl, Frauke Katharina / Krämer, Diana ; From “Asian Values“ to “Asian Experiences“? What is special about South Korean Development Cooperation in Africa? ; Tuesday, March 24, 2015 ; Cape Town, South Africa
Eckl, Frauke Katharina ; Ein Vorbild gelungener Modernisierung? Südkoreanische Bildungsprojekte in Äthiopien ; Friday, March 6, 2015 ; Goethe-University Frankfurt