Reorienting transpacific commerce

On the subject of Chinese entrepreneurism in Central America

Bibliographic Data

ID2049100
AuthorsMonica Dehart (0000-0001-5953-833X, University of Puget Sound, corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume13
Issue1
Publication date2024-10-16
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEconomic Anthropology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2330-4847 • E-ISSN: 2330-4847
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1002/sea2.12331
OpenAlexW4403499232
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited20

Over the last 16 years, Central American governments have increasingly embraced diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China to foster economic opportunities and national development. This analysis builds on ethnographic research in Costa Rica and Guatemala to trace the kinds of entrepreneurialism Central American governments are mobilizing to foment these transpacific commercial relations. This article explores those transpacific spaces and subjects deemed valuable for national development. Though a strong tradition of transnational business connects local ethnic Chinese Central Americans with firms in mainland China and Taiwan, these subjects have largely not been protagonists of incipient state-led initiatives. I argue that the racialization of Chinese Central American businesspeople as ethnic entrepreneurs has precluded them from serving as appropriate subjects of national development. Instead, Central American governments have relied on white elites to develop desired commercial relations and class interests in this new era of transpacific relations. As such, I emphasize the racialized and classed underpinnings of entrepreneurial identity, showing how it positions some as always already suspect economic actors, while others are seen as national subjects capable of a process of entrepreneurial becoming

Geography · World Wide Web · Computer Science · Diaspora, migration, transnational identity · History · Migration and Labor Dynamics · Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy · Geology

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