Thriving Chinese Migrant Entrepreneurship in a Deteriorating Socio-Economic Environment in Zimbabwe

Abstract

Using literature and findings of an ethnographic study of small-scale Chinese retailers in Harare to derive a nuanced understanding of the complex, dynamic and multi-layered narrative of Chinese retailers in Zimbabwe, this chapter explains why Chinese migrant retailers are able to set up businesses in an unstable economic environment in which locals are failing to establish themselves. It focuses on the nature of Chinese business establishments, the social relations that Chinese retailers rely on, and their relations with local people. It seeks to explain and establish when, where and to what extent these factors determine Chinese migrant activities in the retail sector in Zimbabwe. The chapter further looks at how the economic activities of small-scale Chinese retailers are enmeshed in broader economic and political conditions and how they are influenced by these. The approach employed in the chapter is, in essence, borrowed from the human economy idea posited by Hart and Sharp (2015).