Africans in China: A Sociocultural Study and Its Implications on ...

resulting in migration (temporary or otherwise) and the formation of networks and communities in China. These Diasporan networks and communities may end up with the features of global Diasporan communities, exhibiting a certain kind of hybridity involving the cultural and linguistic features of Africa and China.

Sociocultural Framework

In terms of a framework, even though I conduct a broad investigation of the African presence in China along sociopolitical and socioeconomic lines, I will focus more on the sociocultural aspects of this African presence. I conceptualize the performance of a sociocultural study differently here from the way it is used in other research. Vygotsky (1986) looked at sociocultural theory in the context of schooling and education, claiming that human development is a function of social interaction and that one should not, for instance, see a child’s development as an individual process but as a function of the external social world in which the child lives.

For me, a sociocultural study looks at how Africans live their lives and express their culture in a Chinese social context. It addresses a combination of social group factors based on regional, national, religious, racial, ethnic, institutional, educational, and trade features and cultural factors based on language, communication, and other forms of expression—music, clothing, literary genres such as film, and artwork—that help to describe and explain the African presence in China. In particular, as already mentioned, I will be seeking answers to the question, What is it like to be an African in China? This involves finding out how Africans communicate, what languages they use, how they connect with their fellow Africans, how they interact with ordinary Chinese and the Chinese state, what they eat, how they worship, and in general the identities they construct for themselves as Africans in China. The sociocultural approach I adopt here is therefore couched in a deep cross-linguistic and cross-cultural framework; I will draw on both the bridge theory (explored in chapter 2) and the cross-cultural theory of identity construction (addressed in chapter 7) to explain various issues.