Petits commerçants et entrepreneurs chinois au Mali et au Sénégal

Kernen, Antoine; Vulliet, Benoît

doi:10.3917/afco.228.0069

Cited by 26 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…Currently, hearsay estimates the number of Chinese migrants in Senegal to be about 10,000 people. However, according to (Chinese) accountants, there are (Bredeloup 2008;Bredeloup and Bertoncello 2009;Dittgen 2010;Diop 2007;Kernen and Vulliet 2008). Our more recent observations show that, on the Avenue de Gaulle alone, one can count 138 shops, to which those in the Allées Pape Gueye Fall and the Avenues Faidherbe and Petersen also have to be added.…”

Section: Chinese Business In Dakar and Accramentioning

confidence: 85%

Demystifying Chinese business strength in urban Senegal and Ghana: structural change and the performativity of rumours

Marfaing

Thiel

2014

Canadian Journal of African Studies / Revue canadienne des étud

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Independent Chinese entrepreneurs pursuing economic activities as diverse as restaurants, medical services and, most importantly, general trade are increasingly flocking to Africa in search of business opportunities. This article deconstructs the anti-Chinese attitudes prevalent among Senegalese and Ghanaian business people working in the trade sector. Critically, triangulated data suggest that Chinese commodities, which are said to create unfair competition for local entrepreneurs, come to the African continent through diverse import channels, not least local businesses themselves. Thus their presence is not exclusively due to the in-country activities of Chinese migrant entrepreneurs, as is commonly alleged in the daily discourses of Senegalese and Ghanaian market traders. More fundamental processes of socioeconomic change, however, are subjecting traders in Ghana and Senegal to decreasing profit margins and increasing economic competition. Fuelled by broader general myths, understood as a way of conceptualising an abstract topic in chains of cultural referents (O'Sullivan et al. 1994), about the Chinese presence in Africa, we argue that rumours alleging that Chinese traders encroach on the two countries' urban marketplaces are creative means of sense-making for locals operating in a rapidly changing economic environment. RésuméLes entrepreneurs chinois indépendants qui se consacrent à des activités économiques aussi diverses que des restaurants, des services médicaux et, surtout, le commerce général arrivent en nombre croissant en Afrique en quête d'opportunités commerciales. Cet article déconstruit les attitudes anti-chinoises répandues parmi les entrepreneurs sénégalais et ghanéens qui travaillent dans le secteur commercial. Un aspect crucial est le fait que des données triangulées suggèrent que les marchandises chinoises, dont on dit qu'elles entraînent une concurrence déloyale pour les entrepreneurs locaux, arrivent sur le continent africain par des voies d'importation diverses, à commencer par les entreprises locales elles-mêmes. Ainsi, leur présence n'est pas exclusivement due aux activités des entrepreneurs chinois migrants au sein des pays, comme l'affirment souvent les discours quotidiens des marchands sénégalais et ghanéens. Des processus plus fondamentaux de mutations socio-économiques, toutefois, soumettent les commerc ants du Ghana et du Sénégal à des marges bénéficiaires en baisse et à une concurrence économique croissante. En prenant comme base des mythes généraux plus larges, interprétés comme moyen de conceptualiser un sujet abstrait en chaînes de référents culturels (O'Sullivan et al. 1994) sur la présence chinoise en Afrique, nous soutenons que les rumeurs selon lesquelles les commerc ants chinois empiètent sur les marchés urbains des deux pays sont des moyens créatifs employés par les populations locales pour tenter d'appréhender la situation dans un environnement économique en évolution rapide.

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Section: Chinese Business In Dakar and Accramentioning

confidence: 85%

Demystifying Chinese business strength in urban Senegal and Ghana: structural change and the performativity of rumours

Marfaing

Thiel

2014

Canadian Journal of African Studies / Revue canadienne des étud

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“…This is not a unique feature of Sino -African trade; the export of British mass-produced goods in the nineteenth century, for example, was made possible through the establishment of mercantile houses, where exporters employed agents who could ensure that the British supply matched the local demand (Llorca-Jana, 2009). There is a rich and growing body of peer-reviewed scholarship on the linkages between commodity trade and Chinese migration to African countries, including Cape Verde (Haugen and Carling, 2005), Equatorial Guinea (Esteban, 2010), Ghana (Ho, 2008), Kenya (Gadzala, 2009), Mali (Bourdarias, 2009;Kernen and Vulliet, 2008), Namibia (Dobler, 2008(Dobler, , 2009, Senegal (Bredeloup, 2008), South Africa (Huynh, Park and Chen, 2010;Laribee, 2008;Park and Chen, 2009), Tanzania (Hsu, 2007) and Zambia (Gadzala, 2010;Yan and Sautman, 2010). Case studies from other parts of Africa have been published as book chapters, conference papers, reports and graduate theses.…”

Section: Diverse Actorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Chinese Exports to Africa: Competition, Complementarity and Cooperation between Micro-Level Actors

Haugen

2011

Forum for Development Studies

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“…This is true despite their sheer numbers, cumulative investment volumes and their potentially stronger impact on local societiesdue to their proximity and daily interaction with local counterparts, customers, employees and other social actors. Among those authors who do deal with this subject, many emphasize their competition with and domination over local businesses (Brautigam 2008;Dobler 2008;Kernen and Vulliet 2008). Only one study that we know of has noted the positive impact of Chinese engagement on informal traders' access to the market (Lyons and Brown 2010).…”

Section: Laurence Marfaing and Alena Thielmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Impact of Chinese Business on Market Entry in Ghana and Senegal

Marfaing¹,

Thiel²

2013

Africa

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Petits commerçants et entrepreneurs chinois au Mali et au Sénégal

Cited by 26 publications

References 8 publications

Demystifying Chinese business strength in urban Senegal and Ghana: structural change and the performativity of rumours

Demystifying Chinese business strength in urban Senegal and Ghana: structural change and the performativity of rumours

Chinese Exports to Africa: Competition, Complementarity and Cooperation between Micro-Level Actors

The Impact of Chinese Business on Market Entry in Ghana and Senegal

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