New Books in Sociology

Mingwei Huang, "Reconfiguring Racial Capitalism: South Africa in the Chinese Century" (Duke UP, 2024)

Apr 18, 2025

Mingwei Huang, an Assistant Professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Dartmouth College, explores the complexities of racial capitalism in South Africa influenced by Chinese economic activities. He discusses the nuanced power dynamics between Chinese entrepreneurs and African migrant workers, emphasizing how these relations perpetuate historical legacies of colonialism and white supremacy. Huang sheds light on sojourner colonialism, the complexities of migration, and critiques traditional neo-colonial narratives, challenging listeners to rethink Sino-African interactions in the context of global capitalism.

01:05:34

Episode guests

Mingwei Huang

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Quick takeaways

Mingwei Huang emphasizes that racial capitalism involves complex power dynamics between Chinese entrepreneurs and African migrants, perpetuating global structures of oppression despite the absence of whiteness.

The podcast challenges prevailing narratives by highlighting individual experiences and cultural exchanges, revealing how histories of exploitation continue to shape contemporary Sino-African relations.

Deep dives

Motivation Behind the Research

The speaker began the research project on China-Africa relations in 2013, during a time when the field was in its infancy with prevailing narratives centered around Chinese expansionism in Africa. The interest was to go beyond surface-level portrayals by exploring how ordinary individuals from both regions navigate power dynamics and cultural exchanges. By focusing on personal stories and interactions, the speaker aimed to enrich the conversation that had previously relied heavily on grand theories and political economics. This approach brings to light the complex realities of local engagements rather than merely framing them through the lens of international relations.

Intro

2min

Rethinking Racial Capitalism in Sino-African Relations

15min

Understanding Sojourner Colonialism: Chinese Migrants in South Africa

5min

China's Multifaceted Engagement in Africa

6min

Historical Context of Racialized Economic Narratives in South Africa

4min

The Afterlife of Gold: Racial Dynamics in Contemporary Johannesburg

16min

Navigating Exploitation and Survival: The Dual Realities of Migrant Labor

3min

Migration and Economic Dynamics in the China-Africa Context

12min

In Reconfiguring Racial Capitalism: South Africa in the Chinese Century (Duke UP, 2024), Mingwei Huang traces the development of new forms of racial capitalism in the twenty-first century. Through fieldwork in one of the “China malls” that has emerged along Johannesburg’s former mining belt, Huang identifies everyday relations of power and difference between Chinese entrepreneurs and African migrant workers in these wholesale shops. These relations, Huang contends, replicate and perpetuate global structures of white supremacy, anti-Blackness, capitalism, and colonialism, even when whiteness is not present.

Huang argues that this dynamic reflects the sedimented legacies and continued operation of white supremacy and colonialism, which have been transformed in the shift of capitalism’s center of gravity toward China and the Global South. These new forms of racial capitalism and empire layer onto and extend histories of exploitation and racialization in South Africa. Taking a palimpsestic approach, Huang offers tools for understanding this shift and decentering contemporary Western conceptions of race, empire, and racial capitalism in the Chinese Century.

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