ABSTRACT

To many observers, it appears that African businessmen only started to come to mainland China to buy directly from the source some ten years ago. According to my own investigations, however, it seems that older and more discreet dynamics were established in the mid-1980s in other countries in Asia. This chapter will take into account empirical data collected between 2005 and 2009. Observations, interviews, and discussions of life stories were carried out in Bangkok, Dubai, Hong Kong, and Guangzhou, as well as in West Africa (Bamako, Dakar, Praia, and Ouagadougou). First, I will explain the concept of the African trading post, and study how traders weave ties between Dubai, Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, Hong Kong, and Guangzhou to reinforce their networks. I will try to understand how they contribute to the building of marketplaces from the Middle East to Asia and how they leave one and invest in another. Second, I will highlight the different figures of African migrants in Asian towns who run and drive these trading posts. I consider traders to be different from itinerant salespeople. The first have stayed in Asia and become long-term residents while the second can be considered a floating population. In a final step, I will look at the practices that the African migrants are developing when migration policies harden, when urban renewal operations question their presence, and finally when the competition increases.