Migration Seminar

Co-organized by the

School of International Studies at Jinan University &

Yenching Academy at Peking University

African & Chinese Mobilities in the 21^st Century: Perspectives from Guangzhou

Saturday, December 8, 2018 || 9am-12:10pm

 Second Social Sciences Building, Room 416

 Jinan University, Guangzhou (ShipaiTianhecampus)

As China’s engagement with the African continent intensifies and large numbers of Chinese people have accompanied the growing flow of Chinese goods and money to Africa, much attention is focused on who the “Chinese” are. At the same time, however, Guangzhou, recognized for its ability to mass produce different qualities of manufactured goods for the world, has attracted international investors as well as diverse groups of small-scale traders, including those from Africa, passing through or (temporarily) settling. The growing research interest and scholarship on new “migrant” populations in China/Guangzhou suggest that flows of people have become an important component of Chinese society. The continuity of this trend, against the backdrop of the creation of the State Immigration Administration in 2018, is not yet determinable. Nonetheless, this seminar suggests that as the number of Chinese people in African countries rises, so, too, does the number of Africans in China, specifically, Guangzhou. Connections between the two flows need to be made explicit, especially with an equally robust and critical understanding of the latter. To this end, the seminar features five guest speakers who are from multidiscipline with an interest in migration, integration, diversity, and visual representation and production.

 The purpose of the seminar is to facilitate exchange of ideas and knowledge, and to stimulate diversity of perspectives, theories, and methods. The seminar offers the following five lectures in English and Chinese:

Heidi Østbø HAUGEN (Researcher, Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages, University of Oslo)

Lecture title: “China-Africa Mobilities: Methodology and Theoretical Framings”

WANG Liang (Associate Professor, Sociology Department, School of Public Administration, Guangzhou University)

Lecture title: “Under Globalization: Africans and African Community in Guangzhou”

HUANG Kejie(Postdoctoral Fellow, School of Sociology and Anthropology, Sun Yatsen University)

Lecture title: “A Complication of Structures of Ethno-nationalism in China: A Perspective from Black-Chinese Children in Guangzhou”

LI Dong (Independent Cultural Photographer)

Lecture title: “《塞门夫妇》的叙述”

Melissa LEFKOWITZ (PhD Candidate, Anthropology Department, New York University)

Lecture title: “Ethnographic Film in Praxis: Representation and Its Dilemmas in the Making of China Remix”