Vivian Chenxue Lu | Import anxieties and profit politics in Nigerian south-south commerce

Vivian Chenxue Lu
Emplacing capital: Import anxieties and profit politics in Nigerian south-south commerce

This talk examines how south-south circular migrations are transforming Nigerian markets. Based on ethnographic research amongst transnational Nigerian businessmen between Asia and Africa, this talk focuses on the politicization of Nigerian transnational commercial space and its relation to ongoing postcolonial political anxieties surrounding Igbo ethno-regional identity and national economic sovereignty.

Vivian Chenxue Lu is a cultural anthropologist whose work focuses on capitalism and diasporic mobilizations amongst the Global South. Her first book project focuses on the extensive migratory circulations of Nigerian businessmen amongst contemporary trade sites across Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. Drawing from academic genealogies in the anthropology of capitalism, critical race studies, and postcolonial African studies, her work examines how transnational south-south diasporic formations have transformed Nigerian social imaginaries and discourses of postcolonial political and economic sovereignty.

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This talk was presented at "Ethnographies of Mobility: Circular Migration and Uneven Geographies" on 2 Jul 2021, hosted by the Chinese in Africa / Africans in China Research Network Conference Organising Committee in collaboration with the Centre for Cultural Research and Development at the Department of Cultural Studies, Lingnan University, Hong Kong; and the Institute for Emerging Markets at HKUST.

Details: https://culturalresearch.cente....r/Ethnographies-of-M