African student migrants in China: negotiating the global geographies of power through gastronomic practices and culture

Abstract

This paper considers how African student migrants negotiate life in China through gastronomic practices and cultures. African migration to Chinese cities such as Guangzhou and Wuhan is part of internationalization processes that are transforming cities. A thoroughfare in Guangzhou known as Xiaobei is associated with the visible urban presence of African migration because of the ethnic restaurants and shops there. Such typecasting, however, masks more complex food practices that illuminate the social stratification contained within the category popularly referred to as “African.” Food practices also direct attention to migrants’ social interactions with Chinese residents in cities. This paper first highlights the impact of African migration on urban space in China and the social anxieties arising on the part of the Chinese state and residents. Second, the paper argues that even though the African students consume Chinese food as part of their lifestyle routines in China or African food that remind them of home, they also seek out “Western” food as a symbol of cosmopolitan identity to counter racialization in China. Their accounts of food signal colonial and postcolonial negotiations toward the wider global geographies of power in which African countries and the student migrants are situated.

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