Xianchang as a politics of representation

Mapping Sino-African interactions and bottom-up Global South connectivity in Chinese non-state documentaries

Bibliographic Data

ID19224491
AuthorsKaiyang Xu (0009-0002-5351-4745, China Foreign Affairs University, corresponding author)
Year2026
Pages1-21
Publication date2026-06-15
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueInter-Asia Cultural Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1464-9373 • E-ISSN: 1469-8447
PublisherRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14649373.2026.2667056
OpenAlexW7164860238
LanguageEN
References cited34

This paper examines the politics of representation in Chinese non-state documentaries within the cross-cultural context of the Global South. Through analyzing About Bintou (2019) and Bobby’s Factory (2021), I argue that Chinese non-state documentaries produce a knowledge structure of representing Sino-African interactions and perceiving Global South connectivity through the xianchang (on-the-spot realism) aesthetic and practices. Xianchang—a core concept in Chinese documentary studies—connotes a politics of representation that foregrounds everyday and bottom-up dynamics. The politics of representation embedded in xianchang can be fashioned to interrogate global racial order and represent African experiences as integral to Chinese urbanization and globalization. It manifests nuanced interracial dynamics beyond a polarized national-racial reading of African experiences and challenges the domination-subjugation framing of viewing Sino-African relationships. As part of the Global South knowledge production, xianchang serves as a site of non-Western utterance and cultural exchanges within a context-specific framework

China · Framing (construction) · Global city · Global South · Politics · Representation (politics) · Utterance · China's Ethnic Minorities and Relations · China's Global Influence and Migration · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories

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