‘Living by packaging’: housing pathways of African migrant entrepreneurs in Guangzhou

With China's entrance into the World Trade Organisation, an increasing number and diversity of international migrants have moved into Chinese cities, including entrepreneurs. Efforts to manage this migration influx are fraught with ambiguities. Business is welcomed but national visa requirements are very strict and local surveillance is abundant. For African migrants in particular, everyday discrimination adds to their exclusion from larger parts of the city and to insecure housing. This article analyses housing pathways of African entrepreneurs to identify ways in which they find access to housing over time and space in an institutional and geographical context that is highly constrained by formal rules and (informal) practices of urban gatekeepers.