Networks, spheres of influence and the mediation of opportunity: The case of West African trade agents in China

Drawing on theories of networked socio-economic life in West Africa, we advance that the types of Ghanaian and Senegalese communities’ social organization in Yiwu, Guangzhou and Hong Kong have important effects on their members’ entrepreneurial success and upward social mobility. We argue that as an expression of “vernacular cosmopolitanism” (Appiah 1998, Diouf 2000), the circulation of capitals, for example between stablished entrepreneurs and newcomers, is controlled by distinct yet mutually integrated networks. While “networks of accumulation” (Meagher 2006, 2010) give preferential treatment to kin – and community –mediated relations, “networks of survival” lack such strong expressions of solidarity. Here, structural factors external to communal life may allow a newcomer to advance in the career and eventually penetrate into a network of accumulation”, in which insights and experiences but also functional contacts with the Chinese business and bureaucratic channels are concentrated. In their capacity to mobilize the spheres of influence they reach into – be it for members of their network or sporadically also the compatriot in urgent need - “networks of accumulation” of Ghanaian and Senegalese agents in China overlap decisively with the process of community formation