Zambia’s Chinese Connection

In the last two decades, an unprecedented wave of Chinese investment and migration to Africa has transformed many economies on the continent. But this has also provoked a storm of controversy, as some criticize the situation as exploitative neocolonialism. Others defend this migration as development assistance and an act of solidarity between regions jointly victimized by European colonialism. 

In this episode, anthropologist Justin Lee Haruyama takes us to Zambia, where Chinese investment is bringing two cultures together in the country's mines. Justin speaks with local Zambians and researchers on Chinese migration to examine the complicated impacts Chinese activity is having in Africa today.

Justin Lee Haruyama is a British Columbia–based writer, researcher, and anthropologist. He is a fellow with the American Council of Learned Societies and incoming assistant professor at the University of British Columbia, Okanagan. He received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Davis, and has received grants and fellowships from the National Science Foundation, U.S. Fulbright Program, and Wenner-Gren Foundation. Justin’s research examines the controversial presence of Chinese migrants and investors in Zambia today. His writing has appeared in The Chicago Tribune, The South China Morning Post, Anthropology News, Somatosphere, Cultural Anthropology, and elsewhere.

Check out these related resources:

• “Jehovah’s Witnesses Are Learning Chinese to Evangelize in Zambia”
• “Chinese Media Is Obsessed With Portraying China as Africa’s Savior”
• “Belts, Roads, and Non-Hegemonic Dreams”
• “Global China in Zambia: Labor, Capital, and Cultural Tensions”
• Affective Encounters: Everyday Life Among Chinese Migrants in Zambia by Di Wu

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SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human is produced by Written In Air. The executive producers are Dennis Funk and Chip Colwell. This season’s host is Eshe Lewis, who is also the director of the SAPIENS Public Scholars Training Fellowship program. Production and mix support are provided by Rebecca Nolan. Christine Weeber is the copy editor. 

SAPIENS is an editorially independent magazine of the Wenner-Gren Foundation and the University of Chicago Press. SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human is part of the American Anthropological Association Podcast Library. 

This episode is part of the SAPIENS Public Scholars Training Fellowship program, which provides in-depth training for anthropologists in the craft of science communication and public scholarship, funded with the support of a three-year grant from the John Templeton Foundation.