The discourse of racialization of labour and Chinese enterprises in Africa

A ‘race' and labour conjunction has been theorized based on Global North investment in the Global South. Chinese enterprising in Africa allows us to analyse it in a South-South setting. Contrary to dominant discourses, Chinese employers are not the sole racializers of the African/Chinese interface. Chinese and Africans, employers and employees, as well as Western actors, co-constitute racialization, with varied consequences for each. Rhetorical racialization of African employees by some Chinese employers and African employee and politicians’ racialization of Chinese, show that South-South racializations of labour markedly differ from the North-South exemplar.