Allen Hai Xiao
Biographic Data
| ID | 729422 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Allen Hai Xiao |
| GIVEN NAMES | Allen Hai |
| FAMILY NAME | Xiao |
| SIGNATURE | XIAO A H |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Wisconsin–Madison |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-0039-8165 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 16 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 17 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 16 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2014 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Future and Imaginary Geographies of ‘ Africa ’s Singapore ’: Planning the Emergent National–Urban Nexus of Rwanda–Kigali
As an aspirational target, ‘Singapore as model’ provides a sense of the possible for Rwanda's post‐genocide development. Yet how are those possibilities transformed into plans? This article draws on a close reading of the Kigali Master Plan 2050, authored by a Singaporean urban planning firm, and interviews with stakeholders in Rwanda's public and private sectors to understand how the document is to be put to work in building a smart city, linkin…
The spatiality of performative authenticity on social media: A geographical understanding of young African fashion microcelebrities
Young African fashion microcelebrities are social media influencers who regularly share their outfits of the day and actively engage with their audiences, contributing to the burgeoning phenomenon of youth geographies in Africa. By examining their representations of authentic selfhood through a geographical approach to performativity, we not only suggest that authenticity on social media is both performed and performative but also argue that the …
Mapping the conceptual and spatial footprints of Singapore's knowledge transfer to Africa
We transitioned from labour-intensive industries to skills-intensive industries in the 1970s and 1980s, and to a knowledge-based economy in the late 1990s. From 2010, we sought to develop a skills-intensive and innovation driven economy, and to position Singapore as a distinctive global city (Heng, 2024).1 To many observers, one of Singapore's major accomplishments in past decades has been the development of a knowledge-based economy. Exporting t…
Placing African Cities in Chinese Lives: A Comparative Study of Migrant Geographies
Based on ethnographic research on Chinese migrants in Nigeria, Botswana, and Namibia from 2011 to 2015, this article has three lines of argumentation and contribution. First, it proposes a framing of migrant geographies from a humanistic comparative perspective in order to complement the political economy approaches in geographies of migration. Second, lying in the intersection of urban studies and migration studies, it illustrates the different …
The Belt and Road Initiative and Chinese Overseas Diplomatic Authorities: Discursive Representations and the Geopolitical Outreach in Africa
Aligned with critical geopolitics, this article examines the unevenness of geopolitical outreach in the discursive representations of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) by conducting qualitative and quantitative analysis of Chinese diplomatic authorities’ Web site postings in fifty-two African countries. This study not only illustrates the spatiality and temporality of different agencies’ discursive practices in Africa, but also diversifies Chine…
Religious Encounters of the New African Diaspora in China and Malaysia: An Exploratory Study of Migratory Subjectivity and Ideological Mobility
Echoing the new African diaspora literature, this article demonstrates the importance of religious encounters in new African diasporic experiences, as they embody migratory subjectivity that is key to contemporary African migration and possibly leads to ideological mobility. We suggest that encountering the new religious situations should not be limited to person-to-person religious interactions but also take place between individual migrants and…
“The Chinese” in Nigeria: Discursive Ethnicities and (Dis)embedded Experiences
In the emerging Africa–China studies, ethnography has been employed to demystify the monolithic Chinese presence in Africa. Drawing on recent concerns about “discourse” in ethnographies of Chinese migrants in Africa, this article recommends the exploration of “discursive ethnicities”: a term coined to frame a conceptualization of ethnicity that, while embedded in migrant experiences, is embodied through discursive practices. Based on inductive an…
The congested city and situated social inequality: Making sense of urban (im)mobilities in Lagos, Nigeria
Lagos in life: Placing Cities in Lived Experience
Rather than examining what constitutes urban life in a particular city, this paper draws attention to how cities are 'placed' along individuals' life trajectories. The outcome of 15 months of ethnographic research among 102 residents of Lagos's Gowon Estate neighbourhood suggests that Lagos is better understood relationally, through subjective narratives of city life. Given its scale and position among Nigerian cities, the meanings of Lagos to di…
Oka Day as an institution of power: Kingship, chieftaincy and the community day in contemporary Yorubaland
This article provides a case study of a Nigerian community day celebration as a constellation of power dynamics in which kingship, chieftaincy and local politics are intertwined. Complementing the interpretations of the community day as a festival and a community development initiative, this research approaches Oka Day as an institution ofpowersthat is invoked by the king but also incorporates chiefs, social groups, invited guests from beyond Oka…
Becoming…in Lagos: A time-narration approach to city-identification in an African metropolis
The “public narratives” of Africa’s largest metropolis—Lagos—in terms of “Ilu Eko” and “No Man's Land” pave a path to exploring “ontological narratives” which Lagosresidents use to make sense of urban lives. By employing a time-narrationapproach, which emphasizes the narrativity of open-ended life-story interviewsbased on ethnographic fieldwork, to interpret identificationdiscourses and practices in everyday life, this paper makes arguments in th…
Cohabiting commerce in a transport hub: Peoples as infrastructure in Lagos, Nigeria
Based on a case study of Iyana Ipaja, one of the largest transport hubs with a spacious motor park and the most vibrant markets in North Lagos, we elaborate on the nuances of interactions between commercial actors and various forms of infrastructure in the spatial and temporal senses. In terms of materiality and mobility of their businesses, commercial actors are categorised into three types, shopkeepers, stallholders and hawkers. They have exten…
“Oyinbo, Wole!”: Urban Rhythms and Mobile Encounters in the Lagos Transport Systems
Interfered rhythms, navigating mobilities
This chapter is an ethnographic case study of Chinese migrants’ daily mobilities in Lagos. Drawing on Lefebvre’s rhythmanalysis theory, I will explore how a particular form of rhythm – interruption – can be understood in relation to specificities of mobilities and the city on which rhythm is imprinted. In examining rhythms of mobility, much attention has been paid to repetition and regularity of rhythms (Edensor, 2010), while very few empirical r…
In the Shadow of the States: The Informalities of Chinese Petty Entrepreneurship in Nigeria
The burgeoning interstate relation between China and Nigeria is in fact hiding the vulnerable condition of transnational Chinese petty entrepreneurship. Small-scale Chinese entrepreneurs in Nigeria are faced with everyday corruption practised by both Nigerian authorities and ordinary Nigerian people, the dominance of self-interest over cohesion and mutual support among the Chinese compatriots, and variations in state policies due to dynamic and c…
Mobilités transfrontalières et réseaux transculturels de petits entrepreneurs chinois et nigérians
Fondé sur des recherches ethnographiques menées à Canton et Lagos, cet article examine deux processus de mobilité transnationale imbriqués : la migration d'entrepreneurs chinois au Nigeria et celle de commerçants nigérians en Chine. Les activités commerciales transnationales de ces petits entrepreneurs sont replacées dans une analyse de la mondialisation « par le bas », une mondialisation qui se déploie bien en deçà du champ de vision de l'État m…
In the Shadow of the States: The Informalities of Chinese Petty Entrepreneurship in Nigeria
The burgeoning interstate relation between China and Nigeria is in fact hiding the vulnerable condition of transnational Chinese petty entrepreneurship. Small-scale Chinese entrepreneurs in Nigeria are faced with everyday corruption practised by both Nigerian authorities and ordinary Nigerian people, the dominance of self-interest over cohesion and mutual support among the Chinese compatriots, and variations in state policies due to dynamic and c…
The congested city and situated social inequality: Making sense of urban (im)mobilities in Lagos, Nigeria
Cohabiting commerce in a transport hub: Peoples as infrastructure in Lagos, Nigeria
Based on a case study of Iyana Ipaja, one of the largest transport hubs with a spacious motor park and the most vibrant markets in North Lagos, we elaborate on the nuances of interactions between commercial actors and various forms of infrastructure in the spatial and temporal senses. In terms of materiality and mobility of their businesses, commercial actors are categorised into three types, shopkeepers, stallholders and hawkers. They have exten…
Mobilités transfrontalières et réseaux transculturels de petits entrepreneurs chinois et nigérians
Fondé sur des recherches ethnographiques menées à Canton et Lagos, cet article examine deux processus de mobilité transnationale imbriqués : la migration d'entrepreneurs chinois au Nigeria et celle de commerçants nigérians en Chine. Les activités commerciales transnationales de ces petits entrepreneurs sont replacées dans une analyse de la mondialisation « par le bas », une mondialisation qui se déploie bien en deçà du champ de vision de l'État m…
Lagos in life: Placing Cities in Lived Experience
Rather than examining what constitutes urban life in a particular city, this paper draws attention to how cities are 'placed' along individuals' life trajectories. The outcome of 15 months of ethnographic research among 102 residents of Lagos's Gowon Estate neighbourhood suggests that Lagos is better understood relationally, through subjective narratives of city life. Given its scale and position among Nigerian cities, the meanings of Lagos to di…
Oka Day as an institution of power: Kingship, chieftaincy and the community day in contemporary Yorubaland
This article provides a case study of a Nigerian community day celebration as a constellation of power dynamics in which kingship, chieftaincy and local politics are intertwined. Complementing the interpretations of the community day as a festival and a community development initiative, this research approaches Oka Day as an institution ofpowersthat is invoked by the king but also incorporates chiefs, social groups, invited guests from beyond Oka…
Mobilités transfrontalières et réseaux transculturels de petits entrepreneurs chinois et nigérians
Fondé sur des recherches ethnographiques menées à Canton et Lagos, cet article examine deux processus de mobilité transnationale imbriqués : la migration d'entrepreneurs chinois au Nigeria et celle de commerçants nigérians en Chine. Les activités commerciales transnationales de ces petits entrepreneurs sont replacées dans une analyse de la mondialisation « par le bas », une mondialisation qui se déploie bien en deçà du champ de vision de l'État m…
In the Shadow of the States: The Informalities of Chinese Petty Entrepreneurship in Nigeria
The burgeoning interstate relation between China and Nigeria is in fact hiding the vulnerable condition of transnational Chinese petty entrepreneurship. Small-scale Chinese entrepreneurs in Nigeria are faced with everyday corruption practised by both Nigerian authorities and ordinary Nigerian people, the dominance of self-interest over cohesion and mutual support among the Chinese compatriots, and variations in state policies due to dynamic and c…
Interfered rhythms, navigating mobilities
This chapter is an ethnographic case study of Chinese migrants’ daily mobilities in Lagos. Drawing on Lefebvre’s rhythmanalysis theory, I will explore how a particular form of rhythm – interruption – can be understood in relation to specificities of mobilities and the city on which rhythm is imprinted. In examining rhythms of mobility, much attention has been paid to repetition and regularity of rhythms (Edensor, 2010), while very few empirical r…
“Oyinbo, Wole!”: Urban Rhythms and Mobile Encounters in the Lagos Transport Systems
Becoming…in Lagos: A time-narration approach to city-identification in an African metropolis
The “public narratives” of Africa’s largest metropolis—Lagos—in terms of “Ilu Eko” and “No Man's Land” pave a path to exploring “ontological narratives” which Lagosresidents use to make sense of urban lives. By employing a time-narrationapproach, which emphasizes the narrativity of open-ended life-story interviewsbased on ethnographic fieldwork, to interpret identificationdiscourses and practices in everyday life, this paper makes arguments in th…
Cohabiting commerce in a transport hub: Peoples as infrastructure in Lagos, Nigeria
Based on a case study of Iyana Ipaja, one of the largest transport hubs with a spacious motor park and the most vibrant markets in North Lagos, we elaborate on the nuances of interactions between commercial actors and various forms of infrastructure in the spatial and temporal senses. In terms of materiality and mobility of their businesses, commercial actors are categorised into three types, shopkeepers, stallholders and hawkers. They have exten…
“The Chinese” in Nigeria: Discursive Ethnicities and (Dis)embedded Experiences
In the emerging Africa–China studies, ethnography has been employed to demystify the monolithic Chinese presence in Africa. Drawing on recent concerns about “discourse” in ethnographies of Chinese migrants in Africa, this article recommends the exploration of “discursive ethnicities”: a term coined to frame a conceptualization of ethnicity that, while embedded in migrant experiences, is embodied through discursive practices. Based on inductive an…
The congested city and situated social inequality: Making sense of urban (im)mobilities in Lagos, Nigeria
Lagos in life: Placing Cities in Lived Experience
Rather than examining what constitutes urban life in a particular city, this paper draws attention to how cities are 'placed' along individuals' life trajectories. The outcome of 15 months of ethnographic research among 102 residents of Lagos's Gowon Estate neighbourhood suggests that Lagos is better understood relationally, through subjective narratives of city life. Given its scale and position among Nigerian cities, the meanings of Lagos to di…
Oka Day as an institution of power: Kingship, chieftaincy and the community day in contemporary Yorubaland
This article provides a case study of a Nigerian community day celebration as a constellation of power dynamics in which kingship, chieftaincy and local politics are intertwined. Complementing the interpretations of the community day as a festival and a community development initiative, this research approaches Oka Day as an institution ofpowersthat is invoked by the king but also incorporates chiefs, social groups, invited guests from beyond Oka…
Religious Encounters of the New African Diaspora in China and Malaysia: An Exploratory Study of Migratory Subjectivity and Ideological Mobility
Echoing the new African diaspora literature, this article demonstrates the importance of religious encounters in new African diasporic experiences, as they embody migratory subjectivity that is key to contemporary African migration and possibly leads to ideological mobility. We suggest that encountering the new religious situations should not be limited to person-to-person religious interactions but also take place between individual migrants and…
The Belt and Road Initiative and Chinese Overseas Diplomatic Authorities: Discursive Representations and the Geopolitical Outreach in Africa
Aligned with critical geopolitics, this article examines the unevenness of geopolitical outreach in the discursive representations of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) by conducting qualitative and quantitative analysis of Chinese diplomatic authorities’ Web site postings in fifty-two African countries. This study not only illustrates the spatiality and temporality of different agencies’ discursive practices in Africa, but also diversifies Chine…
Placing African Cities in Chinese Lives: A Comparative Study of Migrant Geographies
Based on ethnographic research on Chinese migrants in Nigeria, Botswana, and Namibia from 2011 to 2015, this article has three lines of argumentation and contribution. First, it proposes a framing of migrant geographies from a humanistic comparative perspective in order to complement the political economy approaches in geographies of migration. Second, lying in the intersection of urban studies and migration studies, it illustrates the different …
Mapping the conceptual and spatial footprints of Singapore's knowledge transfer to Africa
We transitioned from labour-intensive industries to skills-intensive industries in the 1970s and 1980s, and to a knowledge-based economy in the late 1990s. From 2010, we sought to develop a skills-intensive and innovation driven economy, and to position Singapore as a distinctive global city (Heng, 2024).1 To many observers, one of Singapore's major accomplishments in past decades has been the development of a knowledge-based economy. Exporting t…
Future and Imaginary Geographies of ‘ Africa ’s Singapore ’: Planning the Emergent National–Urban Nexus of Rwanda–Kigali
As an aspirational target, ‘Singapore as model’ provides a sense of the possible for Rwanda's post‐genocide development. Yet how are those possibilities transformed into plans? This article draws on a close reading of the Kigali Master Plan 2050, authored by a Singaporean urban planning firm, and interviews with stakeholders in Rwanda's public and private sectors to understand how the document is to be put to work in building a smart city, linkin…
The spatiality of performative authenticity on social media: A geographical understanding of young African fashion microcelebrities
Young African fashion microcelebrities are social media influencers who regularly share their outfits of the day and actively engage with their audiences, contributing to the burgeoning phenomenon of youth geographies in Africa. By examining their representations of authentic selfhood through a geographical approach to performativity, we not only suggest that authenticity on social media is both performed and performative but also argue that the …
Sociology (12 works) · Political science (8 works) · China's Global Influence and Migration (6 works) · Gender Studies (6 works) · Urban Planning and Governance (6 works) · Law (5 works) · Social science (5 works) · Art (4 works) · China (4 works) · Epistemology (4 works)