International Fellowships for Early to Mid-Career Urban Scholars from
the Global South
Report on Sabbatical period: January-June 2013
Dr. Basile Ndjio, University of Douala, Cameroon
In 2012, I was a recipient of the International Fellowships for Early to Mid-Career
Urban Scholars from the Global South. The fellowship was granted to me by the
Urban Studies Foundation, one of the main purposes of which is to foster
collaboration between an emerging urban researcher from the global south and
an internationally renowned scholar from the global north. The generous funding
from the Foundation enabled me to spend a six month-sabbatical in the
Department of Human Geography of the University College London (UCL) from
January to June 2013. At UCL, I worked on a research project titled, ‘Sex and the
Transnational City: Chinese sex workers in a West African city,’ under the
mentorship of Dr Ben Page who is a leading expert in the field of transnational
migration and African urbanism. This research, which focused on the city of
Douala in Cameroon, aimed to provide critical empirical data on the complex
networks through which transnational Chinese sex labour migration operates in
this West African city, as well as the strategies developed by various actors in
order to advance in their business. The research also aspired to shed light on
Chinese transnational sex spaces (e.g. Chinese hostels, brothels, Karaoke bars,
beauty saloons, and massage and sauna parlours, etc.) through which cheap
Chinese commoditized bodies were dumped into Cameroon in the same way as
other goods imported from China.
The present report summarizes a number of activities I undertook during my
academic affiliation with UCL, as well as the benefits I drew from the fellowship.
1- Papers presented
On the 30 January 2013, I was a guest speaker at the Centre of African Studies
(CAS) of the University of Edinburgh where I gave a public lecture titled, ‘Sex and
the Transnational City: Chinese sex workers in the city of Douala’. In the paper,
which was drawn from my ongoing research on Chinese sex labour migration in
Cameroon, I argued that the growing Chinese geographies of hedonism formed by
different Chinese hostels, brothels, Karaoke bars, beauty saloons, and massage
and sauna parlours built on the model of Chinese typical traditional architecture,
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were transnational sex spaces through which cheap Chinese commoditized bodies
were dumped into this west African city, in the same way as other goods
imported from China. The results of this research have been developed into an
article and will be submitted for publication to the peer-reviewed journal Urban
Studies.
-On 7 May 2013, I gave a presentation at the weekly Departmental Seminar series
of the Department of Human Geography at UCL a first draft of my paper entitled,
‘Remaking the African urban space: Chinese architecture of capital in the city of
Douala’. This paper aimed to extend scholarly discussions on transnational
urbanism and architectural innovations through detailed empirical examination of
transnational Chinese architectural imagination and practices in Douala. I do so by
focusing my analysis on what I call the ‘architecture of capital’, which offers me a
useful theoretical framework to reflect on the increasing process of Sinonization
of the built environment in this West African city. Through a brief case-study of
some identified Chinese clusters, the paper provided an insight into the critical
role played by local Chinese property developers and construction companies, not
only in orchestrating the development of a Chinese ‘ethnoburb’, but also in
prompting spatial transmutation and architectural innovations in Douala.
The paper has been submitted to the peer-reviewed journal IJURR for publication
and is currently under review.
2- Writing and research
-From January to February 2013, I revised and submitted for publication a draft
paper of a research conducted on young urban tricksters from Cameroon and
Nigeria. The paper has recently been published in a collective volume edited by
Ebenezer Obadare and Wendy Willems under the title, ‘Overcoming socioeconomic marginalisation: Young West African hustlers and the reinvention of
global capitalism’ (in Civil agency in Africa: arts of Resistance in the 21st century,
James Currey, Oxford 2014). The main objective of this work is to show through
the examples of Nigerian advance fee scammers and Cameroonian international
swindlers (commonly characterized in Cameroon as feymen) how email scams and
confidence tricks have become for some disenfranchised African urban youths a
prime means of overcoming socio-economic marginalisation as well as claiming
access to full citizenship. The paper also shows how, particularly since the early
1990s, these young African urban tricksters have been endeavouring, not only to
make the most of accumulative opportunities provided by the present system of
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global capitalism, but also to reframe this dominant mode of capitalisation of
riches; that is to ‘corrupt’ its conventional norms and system of values.
-In other respects, I made use of my stay at UCL to complete a paper on the
popular imagination of Chinese migrant sex workers in Cameroon. The paper is
titled, ‘Magic bodies and cursed sex: Chinese sex workers and the popular
invention of witch-Other in contemporary Cameroon’. Based essentially on
ethnographic research conducted among native sex workers from the city of
Douala and their Chinese counterparts, the paper proposes to shed light on the
various tactics devised by local native sex workers in order to deal with what
many now point out as 'Chinese sexual invasion' of their country. The analysis
particularly focuses on the production of extremist discourses that not only
construe these Chinese migrant sex workers as economic predators, but
especially characterize them as dangerous ‘bitch-witches’ (putes sorcières). The
paper argues that the pervasive idiom of occultism, embodied by the concepts of
‘magic body’ and ‘cursed sex’ that now permeate much of the popular
imagination of Chinese migrant sex labourers in Cameroon, expresses not only the
contradictory imagination of Chinese migrants at large but also the paradox at the
core of China’s renew relations with Africa.
The paper has been accepted for publication by African Affairs.
-During my stay at the UCL I started and completed the writing of chapter two of
my book manuscript titled, Behind closed doors: Chinese sex labour migration in
Africa. This study makes a historical analysis of Chinese sexual labour migration in
West Africa with a special focus on Cameroon. It also provides a wealth of
information on socio-economic backgrounds of Chinese sex labour migrants, their
social aspirations, their mode of operation and the different strategies they
deploy in order to advance in their prostitution business, etc.
From February to June 2013, I was also involved as consultant in a project
sponsored by the Science Museum of London. This project entitled, ‘Cameroon
MMC’ (making modern communication) aimed to explain the relationship
between tradition forms of communication in Cameroon, such as the talking
drum, and mobile phones. The project also explored the status of mobile phones
in the Cameroonian society, as people communicate within Cameroon, and
between Cameroon and the UK.
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3-Conferences and seminars attended
In addition to my research and writing, I took part in s e v e r a l a c t i v i t i e s a n d
a c a d e m i c m e e t i n g s organized either within the UCL or by other academic
institutions across the UK. I have in mind the numerous seminars and
conferences I attended from February to June 2013 at the Bartlett School of
Planning, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), King’s College, London
School of Economics and Political Sciences(LSE), at the Centre of African Studies of
the Oxford University and Cambridge University.
4-Benefits from the Fellowship
I benefited a lot from the Urban Foundation Fellowship both intellectually and
socially. From the academic and scholarly point of view, the fellowship offered me
an interesting opportunity to further my friendship as well as my intellectual
collaboration with my mentor, Dr Ben Page, who is one of the leading
international experts on transnational social networks of migration from and
towards Cameroon. We even planned to develop a collaborative research
proposal on a topic that fits into our common research interests. Dr Ben was kind
enough to guide me in both my readings and my writing. His insightful comments
and pertinent remarks helped me to improve the quality of the various texts I
produced during my stay at the UCL.
As regards my academic affiliation, working at UCL was for me both an
intellectually fruitful and socially enjoyable experience. Indeed, the UCL
Department of Human Geography proved to be a hub for a vibrant and cutting
edge research on questions related to transnational urbanism and transnational
migration. In addition, I gained a wealth of knowledge, not only from my reading
of the seminal works produced by members of the Department’s research staff,
but also from my interactions with some of the world-class urbanists and
geographers with whom I had many stimulating conversations on topics that
overlapped with my own research interests. I have in mind my intellectual
exchanges with Pr. Fulong Wu from the Bartlett School of Planning from the UCL,
who showed some interest in my work on Chinese sex labour migration in
Cameroon. We hinted at the perspective of developing a future collaborative
research on Chinese-African relations with respect to city restructuration and
transnational migration. My regular meetings with Professors Matthew Gandy
and Jenny Robinson from the Department of Human Geography offered me
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opportunities to hold fruitful discussions with these prominent urban theorists on
issued relating to comparative urbanism, African urbanism and postcolonial urban
theory.
All these contacts helped me increase my knowledge on disciplines such as
human geography and urban studies, for which I had so far had a biased
understanding.
More importantly, a wealth of knowledge I gained from my readings of influential
works on urbanism and human geography, as well as my intellectual exchanges
with these leading urban scholars, helped me to improve the content of my
undergraduate course on urban anthropology and my master course on
transnational migratory movements taught at the University of Douala in
Cameroon.
Socially, I particularly appreciated my stay at UCL, not only because I met some
sympathetic and caring people who were always ready to provide a helping hand
or to assist me in sorting out some administrative or technical problems. At UCL I
also enjoyed a sense of friendship and camaraderie that permeated relationships
among colleagues and other supporting staff members.
While in the UK, I had the opportunity to meet Pr Thandika Nkandawire, Chair in
African Development at LSE, who strongly encouraged me to apply for the visiting
fellowship offered to Africa-based scholars by the LSE African Initiative.
To conclude, I am especially thankful to the Urban Studies Foundation for
providing a fellowship which can enable Africa-based scholars to enhance their
capacity building as well as their international profile and career path. This
fellowship is all the more valuable and appreciable that very few African academic
institutions offer such a support permitting their researchers to conduct highquality research.
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