{"title":"坦桑尼亚的低成本中国商品:跨国贸易路线周边分支的兴起","authors":"Sylvain Racaud","doi":"10.1080/21681392.2022.2154234","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"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.","PeriodicalId":37966,"journal":{"name":"Critical African Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.3000,"publicationDate":"2022-12-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"1","resultStr":"{\"title\":\"Low-cost Chinese goods in Tanzania: the rise of transnational trade routes’ peripheral branches\",\"authors\":\"Sylvain Racaud\",\"doi\":\"10.1080/21681392.2022.2154234\",\"DOIUrl\":null,\"url\":null,\"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.\",\"PeriodicalId\":37966,\"journal\":{\"name\":\"Critical African Studies\",\"volume\":null,\"pages\":null},\"PeriodicalIF\":1.3000,\"publicationDate\":\"2022-12-12\",\"publicationTypes\":\"Journal Article\",\"fieldsOfStudy\":null,\"isOpenAccess\":false,\"openAccessPdf\":\"\",\"citationCount\":\"1\",\"resultStr\":null,\"platform\":\"Semanticscholar\",\"paperid\":null,\"PeriodicalName\":\"Critical African Studies\",\"FirstCategoryId\":\"1085\",\"ListUrlMain\":\"https://doi.org/10.1080/21681392.2022.2154234\",\"RegionNum\":0,\"RegionCategory\":null,\"ArticlePicture\":[],\"TitleCN\":null,\"AbstractTextCN\":null,\"PMCID\":null,\"EPubDate\":\"\",\"PubModel\":\"\",\"JCR\":\"Q2\",\"JCRName\":\"ANTHROPOLOGY\",\"Score\":null,\"Total\":0}","platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Critical African Studies","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/21681392.2022.2154234","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"ANTHROPOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
Low-cost Chinese goods in Tanzania: the rise of transnational trade routes’ peripheral branches
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.
期刊介绍:
Critical African Studies seeks to return Africanist scholarship to the heart of theoretical innovation within each of its constituent disciplines, including Anthropology, Political Science, Sociology, History, Law and Economics. We offer authors a more flexible publishing platform than other journals, allowing them greater space to develop empirical discussions alongside theoretical and conceptual engagements. We aim to publish scholarly articles that offer both innovative empirical contributions, grounded in original fieldwork, and also innovative theoretical engagements. This speaks to our broader intention to promote the deployment of thorough empirical work for the purposes of sophisticated theoretical innovation. We invite contributions that meet the aims of the journal, including special issue proposals that offer fresh empirical and theoretical insights into African Studies debates.