This book focuses on the migration strategies of Chinese women who travel to Mexico City in search of opportunities and survival. Specifically, it explores the experiences and contributions of women who have placed themselves within the local and conflictive networks of Mexico City´s downtown street markets (particularly in Tepito), where they work as suppliers and petty vendors of inexpensive products made in China (specifically in Yiwu). Street markets are the vital nodes of Mexican “popular” economy (economía popular), but the people that work and live among them have a long history of marginalization in relation to formal economic networks in Mexico City. Despite the difficult conditions of these spaces, in the last three decades they have become a new source of economic opportunities and labor market access for Chinese migrants, particularly for women. Through their commerce, these migrants have introduced new commodities and new trade dynamics into these markets, which are thereby transformed into alternative spaces of globalization.
Author(s): Ximena Alba Villalever
Series: Historical and Cultural Interconnections between Latin America and Asia
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2020
Language: English
Pages: 281
City: Cham
Acknowledgments
Contents
List of Translations
Abbreviations
List of Figures
1 Introduction
1.1 Chinese Migration to Mexico
1.2 Context
1.3 Objectives and Questions
1.4 Methodology and Research Design: Who, Where and How?
1.5 The Subjects
1.6 The Places
1.7 Theoretical and Conceptual Framework
1.8 Outline of the Study
Bibliography
Part I Locating the Chinese in Mexican Popular Markets
2 The Organization and Characteristics of Street Markets and “Popular” Economy
2.1 Popular Markets: From Spaces of Struggle to Spaces of Opportunities
2.1.1 Defining Spaces of Opportunities
2.1.2 Popular Political Organizations
2.2 Tepito and Its Actors, an Intersectional Approach
2.2.1 Learning the Game of Trade, Childhood and Adulthood in Tepito
2.2.2 Marriage and Comadrazgo
2.2.3 From Fayuca to Ethnic Intermediation
2.3 Migration and Commerce in Tepito
2.4 Conclusions
Bibliography
3 Building Alternative Commodity Chains Between Mexico and China
3.1 Yiwu: The Construction of the World’s Factory
3.1.1 Yiwu, in a Plastic Nutshell
3.1.2 From Yiwu to Tepito
3.1.3 A Global Locality
3.2 Following the Production of a Hair Garment: The Role of Migrants in the Establishment of New Global Commodity Chains
3.2.1 Migration and Global Production
3.2.2 Transnational Commercial Spaces: The Chinese in Tepito
3.3 Tepito’s “Plaza Beijing”: Migration, Commodities and Discrimination
3.4 Conclusions
Bibliography
Part II Herstories of Migration, Building Spaces of Opportunities
4 Gender Inequality in China, a Path to Migration
4.1 Visibilizing Chinese Women in Migration Studies
4.2 The Feminization of Chinese Migration Patterns: Causes and Effects
4.3 Childhood in a Chinese Jia: Structural Inequalities
4.4 Unequal Access to Education and Work for Women in China
Bibliography
5 Migration to Mexico as a Strategy for Survival and Growth: Building Opportunities in Mexican Popular Markets
5.1 New Migration Patterns to Mexico City’s Popular Markets and the Search for Opportunities
5.1.1 Migration to Mexico
5.2 Marriage and Work Within Migration: Changing the Organization of the Household
5.2.1 Family Organization
5.2.2 Family Practices and Social Protection
5.3 From Petty Vendors to Importers: The Need for Networks and Associations to Grow in Popular Markets
5.3.1 Chinese Businesspeople: A Trade Chain Linking Different Economic Capacities
5.3.2 Guangxi in Tepito
5.4 Conclusions
Bibliography
Part III Migration and Commodity Chains, Drafting Alternative Spaces of Globalization
6 Women as Actors of Transnational Formations
6.1 What Are Alternative Spaces of Globalization?
6.1.1 Constructing Cities: Where Place, Space and Gender Come Together
6.2 Vulnerabilities and Resistances in the City: Building Networks of Trust Between Guanxi and Comadrazgo
6.3 Constructing Cities Through Belonging: Bringing Gender In
6.4 Transnational Motherhoods
6.5 Building Transnational Family Businesses
6.6 Building Alternatives to Survival and Growth
6.7 Conclusions
Bibliography
7 Conclusions
Bibliography
Annex
Research Methods
Bibliography
Index
