Low-cost Chinese goods in Tanzania: the rise of transnational trade routes’ peripheral branches

Abstract

This article illustrates how rural margins and urban-rural relations in southwest Tanzania join up with transnational trade routes for Chinese goods. It examines the trade of low-cost imported goods from China (plastic sandals, cheap jewellery, various fashion accessories, cheap clothing, etc.) that are widely spread in Tanzania, up into the peripheral countryside. By examining the concept of trade routes, the article contributes to the literature on urban-rural relations in African Studies and ‘inconspicuous globalisation’ by proposing a contrary perspective, where rural areas viewed as areas of consumption of imported products. It then rescales the globalization analysis by situating urban-rural relations at the heart of local and global interconnections. The article demonstrates that geographically peripheral places and actors have a capacity to influence the direction of the global trade route as they combine complementarities between the urban-rural continuum and topological continuity of networks from local to global. The global trade geography is profoundly influenced by what goes on in its inconspicuous tentacles in upcountry regions, such as the Uporoto Mountains, where the global trade route relies on the dynamism of local agriculture, which is increasingly merging with other livelihoods. This is exemplified by the complementarities between trade and agriculture in terms of livelihood, circulation of capital, urban-rural mobility, and links to global scales, which highlight the de-agrarianization process and the development of a mass consumption society.