Affective Encounters

Against the background of China's rapidly growing, and sometimes highly controversial, activities in Africa, this book is among the first of its kind to systematically document Sino-African interactions at the everyday level. Based on sixteen months of ethnographic fieldwork at two contrasting sites in Lusaka, Zambia-a Chinese state-sponsored educational farm and a private Chinese family farm-Di Wu focuses on daily interactions among Chinese migrants and their Zambian hosts. Daily communicative events, e.g. banquets, market negotiations, work-place disputes, and various social encounters across a range of settings are used to trace the essential role that emotion/affect plays in forming and reproducing social relations and group identities among Chinese migrants. Wu suggests that affective encounters in everyday situations-as well as failed attempts to generate affect-should not be overlooked in order to fully appreciate Sino-African interactions. Deeply researched and with rich ethnographic detail, this book will be relevant to scholars of anthropology, international development, and others interested in Sino-African relations.