Africans in Guangzhou: Is the ethnic enclave model applicable in the Chinese context?

In the literature on the incorporation of immigrants, ethnic enclaves are described as residential spatial concentrations fulfilling several economic and social functions for its residents. This paper questions whether this model is applicable for understanding the African concentration in China. Based on fieldwork in 2012 and 2016, this paper tries to give an overview of the changing dispersal patterns of Africans in Guangzhou and to explain how the new African clusters are connected to the areas where African businesses are concentrated. The initial African clusters may have lost their dominant role in the housing of African migrants, yet they are the focal point of the African communities in Guangzhou, as both commercial and leisure activities remain concentrated here. We argue that while there is no enclave (anymore) in the sense of a contingent area where Africans constitute a big part of the population, the African clusters still fulfils some functions that are associated with an ethnic enclave. However, the obstacles that the Chinese authorities put in the way of obtaining a long-term residence permit make it highly unlikely that African clusters in Guangzhou will develop into the type of ethnic enclaves that are described in the Anglo-Saxon literature. •Existing studies have been limited in the interferences they could make about the important aspects of more long-term international migrants and their geographical configurations in particular in a long run period.•The present study tackles this problem by combining population data with detailed geographical data on African concentration from a cross-sectional perspective in 2015 and 2016.•This allows us to examine the effects of ethnic concentration at a wide variety of geographical scales - including the very local level - and to provide a detailed spatial configurations inside the African concentration.•Besides, we also have ethnographic data in 2012 and in 2016 beyond the African concentration to other clustering areas, with both geographical data and narrative data.•According to these different types of data, we find supports to our argument that the African concentration in Guangzhou is different from the ethnic enclave model in Anglo-Saxon literature in the Chinese context.