“Hurdles” or “lubricants”: Petty corruption and Chinese migrants in Africa

Abstract

AbstractDrawing on ethnographic fieldwork in Ghana and China between 2016 and 2022, this paper provides a sociological analysis of how new Chinese migrants in Ghana, and more generally in Sub‐Saharan Africa, navigate their social and economic integration into the host society by dealing with petty corruption in everyday life. This article examines how similarities and discrepancies in corruption norms contribute to “cultural matching” and cultural conflicts in Sino‐African encounters, as well as the coping strategies and social‐cultural techniques the migrants develop to navigate their relationship with local bureaucracy. My findings demonstrate that for migrants within the Global South, corruption in the sending and receiving regions is likely to be rooted in different politico‐economic structures and cultural grounds. Conflicting understandings of corruption can pose challenges to migrants' initial adaptation in the host society. However, as the migrants develop a proper “cultural toolkit,” engagement in corruption and rent‐seeking activities may provide a “cultural matching” interface that facilitates the rapid integration of new migrants into the local market and society. This study provides new insights into our understanding of bureaucracy in international migration, corruption, and migration settlement, as well as the sociocultural negotiation of corruption codes and norms in cross‐cultural encounters.