CONTESTING GENDER SPACE: DEMASCULINIZATION OF GUANGZHOU’SAFRICAN TRADER POPULATION

Abstract

The African trader population in Guangzhou, the capital of China‟s Guangdong province, was, until recently, highly „masculinized‟, for until a decade ago the vast majority of Africansgoing to that city on business were male. The predominance of male traders in that diasporic subgroup, however, is being eroded by the increasing number of African women, who are now going to that city on business. The women traders are leveraging the existence of an African diaspora in that city to carve out a niche for themselves in their continent‟s trade with China. As this research found out, they are going to China for different reasons. For example, there are those who are going there because they want “to support their familiesâ€; there are also those who are going there because “things are cheaper here [in Guangzhou]â€. During the fieldwork carried out between 2015 and 2016, twenty-five persons (fifteen females and ten males; fifteen from English-speaking countries and ten from French-speaking) were surveyed. Most of those who declined to be surveyed did so either because of reservations about the researcher‟s identity and purpose or because they did not understand English. Some of the data came from direct observation.