Raw Encounters
Chinese Managers, African Workers and the Politics of Casualization in Africa's Chinese Enclaves
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 5809840 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Ching Kwan Lee (0000-0003-0672-5283, University of California, Los Angeles, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2009 |
| Volume | 199 |
| Pages | 647-666 |
| Publication date | 2009-09-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The China Quarterly (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0009-4439 • E-ISSN: 1468-2648 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0305741009990142 |
| OpenAlex | W2172044003 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 111 |
| References cited | 18 |
This article examines one of the pre-eminent logics of global capital flow - the pursuit of flexible labour regimes - as a window to explore the interaction between Chinese investments and African communities. It analyses the respective "politics of casualization" in the Chambishi mine on the Zambian Copperbelt and the Tanzania-China Friendship Mill in the port city of Dar es Salaam. Both Zambian and Tanzanian workers have witnessed and resisted precipitous "informalization" of employment since the Chinese assumed full or majority ownership in the late 1990s. Wildcat strikes were staged by workers in both cases. Nevertheless, Zambian copper miners, but not Tanzanian textile workers, seem to have successfully halted this tendency of casualization. After several years of struggle, in 2007 they signed new collective agreements with the Chinese management, who agreed gradually to convert all casual and contract jobs into "permanent" pensionable ones. By explaining the divergent outcomes of these two cases of labour resistance, I hope to identify the major factors shaping the encounter between Chinese managers and African workers
Casual · China · Development economics · Economic growth · Economics · Government (linguistics · Political science · Politics · Resistance (ecology · Socioeconomics · Sociology · Tanzania · China's Global Influence and Migration · Historical and Contemporary Political Dynamics · International Development and Aid · Law · Mining and Resource Management
Aspirational Mandarin, Operational English
China–Africa Encounters
Dual Interaction of Interest and Norm in Transcultural Communication
Gilded Outside, Shoddy Within
Volume 22, número 1
Fábricas selvagens
Ethnicity, State Capacity, and Development
China in Africa
The Politics of What Works for the Poor in Public Expenditure and Taxation
Coevolutionary Pragmatism
Global Perspectives on China's Belt and Road Initiative
How China Is Reshaping the Global Economy
New Directions in Africa–China Studies
Africa Since 1940
Africa's Global Infrastructures
China’s Foreign Propaganda Practices
A Global Sense of Work place
In the General's Valley
The Impact of Chinese Business on Market Entry in Ghana and Senegal
Introduction
International business and Africa
Governing new mining projects in D. R. Congo. A view from the HR department of a Chinese company
China–Africa relations
Interweaving Afro-Asian Solidarity
African Shenzhen
Enclave or integration? Mining boom’s impacts on urbanization in Sub-Saharan Africa
The Africa-China relationship
“The Chinese” in Nigeria
Mining, welfare and urbanisation
Globalization, academic knowledge interests and the global careers discourse
Identifying the Non-Traditional Safety Risk Paths of Employees from Chinese International Construction Companies in Africa
Quand les entreprises du Sud investissent au Sud
New geographies of development
Sampling migrants from their social networks
Victimized State and Visionary Leader? Questioning China’s Approach to Human Security in Africa
Chinese Adaptations
Severing the Belt and Road
China as Exemplar
Going West and Going Out
A handshake across the Himalayas
Chinese apparel value chains in Europe
Identifying Forward and Backward Linkages From China's Infrastructure Investment in Africa
Employment casualisation and trade union survival strategies in the beverage sector in Lagos, Nigeria
Borderline Gardening
Queer positions , Queering Asian Studies
Nupela Masta? Local and Expatriate Labour in a Chinese-Run Nickel Mine in Papua New Guinea 1
Introduction
Part of the Disease Or Part of the Cure? Chinese Investments in the Zambian Mining and Construction Sectors
Ghana’s Bui Hydropower Dam and Linkage Creation Challenges
Building Africa’s Infrastructure
Chinese participation in Ghana's informal gold mining economy
Labor conflict within foreign, domestic, and Chinese-owned manufacturing firms in Ethiopia
At Africa’s expense? Disaggregating the employment effects of Chinese mining operations in sub-Saharan Africa
Variegated work regimes of Chinese investment in Ethiopia
Bring Your Own Workers
Chinese Commodity Imports in Ghana and Senegal
The urbanising dynamics of global China
Business Borderlands
Workplace regimes in Sino-Mozambican construction projects
Chinese Eastern Industrial Zone in Ethiopia
Industrial District and the Multiplication of Labour
Transnational migrant labor, split labor markets, and workers’ boundary-making practices in a Chinese state-sponsored workplace in Ecuador
Global Capital, Local Dynamics
Sino-African Encounters in Ghana and Nigeria
Improving health services for African migrants in China
Time Perception and Industrialization
Of Other Spaces? Hybrid Forms of Chinese Engagement in Sub-Saharan Africa
Between racialized and racializing
Unpacking local agency in China–Africa relations
The compound labor regime of Chinese construction projects in Ethiopia
Kenya and China's labour relations
Multiscalar politics of infrastructural labour
Political regimes and foreign investment in poor countries
Localization or living in Chinese “bubbles”? Chinese expatriates in Brunei Darussalam
Chinese and ‘self-segregation’ in Africa
Moving Along the Belt and Road
The Beginning of a World Empire”? Contesting the Discourse of Chinese Copper Mining in Zambia
A Ascensão Da China, a Ásia E O Sul Global
The Politics of Inclusive Development
Worlding Developmentalism
Reading Mozambique's mega-project developmentalism through the workplace
The moral embeddedness of labor market transactions in Indonesia
Ownership matters
Beyond the Enclave
The struggle to empower trade union members
Negotiating Work
Globalization with Chinese Characteristics
Greater Chinese' Global Production Networks in the Middle East
African Extraction, Indian Ocean Critique
Greater China, the challenges of global production networks and the dynamics of transformation
Transnationalizing intrapreneurship of Chinese private investment in Africa
Representing China on the ground
Parler pour la Chine
Last of the Labour Aristocrats
South-South? Culture Talk and Labour Relations at a Chinese-owned Factory in Hungary
Chinese Investors, Labour Discipline and Developmental Cosmopolitanism
Vivre et travailler dans une enclave chinoise au Cameroun
Development Dynamics of Chinese Resource-Based Investment in Peru and Ecuador
The Chinese Century and the City of Gold
Racializing China-Africa Relations
The star raft
Against the Law
China in Africa
Mineworkers in Zambia
Colonialism and Culture
Multinationals, workers and the parastatals in Tanzania
Developing Regions Facing China in a Neoliberalized World
The politics of structural adjustment in Zambia
From race to citizenship
They Poured Themselves Into the Milk
Kafir Time’
Of cabbages and King Cobra
Blood Enemies
The Disappearance of Strikes in Tanzania
Expectations of Modernity
| Unique citing works | 111 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 6,53 |
| Citation span | 2009 - 2026 (18) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | Yes |
| Citation types | Neutral: 105 |