Chinese in Africa/Africans in China

　　The project is applied and approved in October 2017, the two principle investigator are prof. Li Xinfeng, deputy director of IWAAS, CASS, and Dr. Gregory Houston, chief research specialist from Human Sciences Research Council in South Africa.

　　The background and significance:

　　With the further development of the China-African relations, the two-way immigration between China and Africa has ceaselessly increased. On the one hand, the African continent has become one of the major destinations for Chinese immigrants. These Chinese immigrants make certain contribution to the development of African society and economy. But they also meet some social integration issues and even are subject to criticism of lacking efforts in social integration. On the other hand, a number of African immigrants flood into Guangzhou, Yiwu and other cities in China. The issue of African illegal immigrants has brought with some management difficulties for Chinese local governments and even caused some rumors and biased comments on the Chinese internet.

　　Based on this context, we would like to realize three main targets through this research project: First of all, we’ll conduct systematic investigation and research studies toward Chinese immigrants in Africa and African immigrants in China in terms of population, basic living conditions and their relations with local society in order to reaching to an objective conclusion; Second, this project aims at not only providing a reference for Chinese government to correctly guide and legally protect Chinese immigrants in Africa, leading them to better integrate into local society in Africa, but also giving some suggestions for Chinese local governments to better know African immigrants living in their regions; Thirdly, this project also aims at making certain contribution to promoting China-African cultural exchanges and the development of China-African relations.

　　Basic principles:

　　The research team will conduct the field investigations in both China and Africa, adopting the migration theory and the social inclusion theory from sociology and absorbing methodologies of anthropology. For the research report, we’ll combine with research approaches of history, political economics, international relations and other disciplines so that we can make the research findings both theoretical and enlightening to solving reality issues.

　　Basic framework:

　　The project will mainly focus on the following 10 perspectives: 1) the history of Chinese in Africa and Africans in China; 2) the population of overseas Chinese in Africa and the population of Africans in China; 3) employment status; 4) medical condition; 5) education profile; 6) housing condition; 7) basic living condition, including religious beliefs; 8) marital status; 9) the relations with local governments; 10) social organizations and communities they participate in.

（图片来自中国政府网）