The "Doing" and "Undoing" of Community; Chinese Networks in Ghana

Chinese have been migrating to Ghana since the late 1950s. Despite over 50 years of migration to Ghana, the Chinese do not consider Ghana their home but rather live in an extended transitory state that can last from a couple of years to several decades. Part of the nature of this extended transitory state is the invisibility of a community. This paper looks at the nature of community among the Chinese in Ghana arguing that there is a constant desire to push away from the idea of belonging to a community (“undoing” of community) while at the same time pulling towards more social intimacy (“doing” of community). In particular, this paper looks at gossip and suspicion in conjunction with economic cooperation and competition as aspects of their social encounter that illuminates the nature of this pendulum swing. (Manuscript received February 27, 2008; accepted for publication April 21, 2008

Drivers of Change or Cut-Throat Competitors? Challenging Cultures of Innovation of Chinese and Nigerian Migrant Entrepreneurs in West Africa

L'afflux remarquable des entrepreneurs migrants chinois dans différents pays d'Afrique occidentale au cours des dernières années a été heurtée à une résistance de plus en plus farouche par des entrepreneurs locaux établis. Que le premiers ont un avantage concurrentiel sur ce dernier en raison de traits socio-culturels distinctifs, ou si l'efficacité supposée chinoise est juste une caractéristique de toutes les diasporas mercantiles, est ouvert à la question. Cette étude exploratoire des migrants entrepreneuriales chinois et nigérians au Ghana et au Bénin tente de répondre à cette question. Apparemment, les forces culturels des agents du changement migrants ne sont pas limités à des systèmes de valeurs héritées ou religions, comme une éthique protestante ou le confucianisme, mais ils sont adaptés en permanence et ont inventé de nouveau par des réseaux transnationaux de la migration dans un monde globalisé. Il n'y a aucune preuve d'une prétendue supériorité de la culture d’innovation chinois par rapport aux cultures d’innovation africains des migrants entrepreneuriales. Plutôt, il existe une capacité accrue d'innovation d'une diaspora mercantile en général vis à vis des entrepreneurs locaux, indépendamment de l'origine de la culture nationale dans lequel il est intégré. En outre, la rivalité des entrepreneurs migrants chinois et nigérians dans les marchés africains ne conduit pas nécessairement à la concurrence coupe-gorge souvent suspectée sous l'impact de la mondialisation. Souvent, les deux groupes agissent plutôt complémentaires. Cela contribue, sous certaines conditions, même à la réduction de la pauvreté dans le pays d'accueil

Living in Liminality: Chinese Migrancy in Ghana

Is the sense of community necessarily something that immigrants yearn? Do migrants necessarily want to settle down or maintain connections to their former homes, or are there other ways of living? This dissertation is an ethnographic account of the Chinese in Ghana that looks closely at their lives to understand the nature of community and stability. For various historical and personal reasons, the Chinese in Ghana are an "invisible population" without a sense of residential and cultural community. Despite many Chinese having lived in Ghana for decades, the desire to settle down is not strong, and at the same time, they do not necessarily want to go elsewhere.Based upon two years of ethnographic fieldwork primarily in the cities of Accra and Tema, I explore how the Chinese in Ghana live and engage with their liminal status in unexpected ways. I argue that in order to see these kinds of experiences and to understand them, it is necessary to take a person-centred ethnographic approach rather than relying primarily on structural and historical and analysis. I argue that assuming the Chinese in Ghana is a community would obfuscate how their social relations fracture and congeal to produce not community, but malleable social networks which at various times individuals remove themselves from in order to maintain some kind of invisibility and privacy. Paying attention to people's concurrent narratives (multiple narratives that exist simultaneously but may not be revealed at the same time) demonstrate how individuals are contradictory in their understanding of their worlds and their methods of negotiating their lives. The overarching theme in this dissertation is that while many Chinese in Ghana either find their situation less than desirable or sometimes tenable for the time being, many do not want to leave immediately or return to their former homes. Instead, they find a way to live in liminality and they sometimes find this a desirable trait. This study demonstrates the dangers of assuming the Chinese in Africa are fairly homogenous, or that typical migrant narratives of home and community necessarily apply to them

Data from an International Multi-Centre Study of Statistics and Mathematics Anxieties and Related Variables in University Students (the SMARVUS Dataset)

This large, international dataset contains survey responses from N = 12,570 students from 100 universities in 35 countries, collected in 21 languages. We measured anxieties (statistics, mathematics, test, trait, social interaction, performance, creativity, intolerance of uncertainty, and fear of negative evaluation), self-efficacy, persistence, and the cognitive reflection test, and collected demographics, previous mathematics grades, self-reported and official statistics grades, and statistics module details. Data reuse potential is broad, including testing links between anxieties and statistics/mathematics education factors, and examining instruments’ psychometric properties across different languages and contexts. Data and metadata are stored on the Open Science Framework website (https://osf.io/mhg94/)

Data from an international multi-centre study of statistics and mathematics anxieties and related variables in university students (the SMARVUS dataset)

This large, international dataset contains survey responses from N = 12,570 students from 100 universities in 35 countries, collected in 21 languages. We measured anxieties (statistics, mathematics, test, trait, social interaction, performance, creativity, intolerance of uncertainty, and fear of negative evaluation), self-efficacy, persistence, and the cognitive reflection test, and collected demographics, previous mathematics grades, self-reported and official statistics grades, and statistics module details. Data reuse potential is broad, including testing links between anxieties and statistics/mathematics education factors, and examining instruments’ psychometric properties across different languages and contexts. Data and metadata are stored on the Open Science Framework website [https://osf.io/mhg94/]

Data from an International Multi-Centre Study of Statistics and Mathematics Anxieties and Related Variables in University Students (the SMARVUS Dataset)

International audienceThis large, international dataset contains survey responses from N = 12,570 students from 100 universities in 35 countries, collected in 21 languages. We measured anxieties (statistics, mathematics, test, trait, social interaction, performance, creativity, intolerance of uncertainty, and fear of negative evaluation), self-efficacy, persistence, and the cognitive reflection test, and collected demographics, previous mathematics grades, self-reported and official statistics grades, and statistics module details. Data reuse potential is broad, including testing links between anxieties and statistics/mathematics education factors, and examining instruments’ psychometric properties across different languages and contexts. Data and metadata are stored on the Open Science Framework website [https://osf.io/mhg94/]

Data from an International Multi-Centre Study of Statistics and Mathematics Anxieties and Related Variables in University Students (the SMARVUS Dataset)

This large, international dataset contains survey responses from N = 12,570 students from 100 universities in 35 countries, collected in 21 languages. We measured anxieties (statistics, mathematics, test, trait, social interaction, performance, creativity, intolerance of uncertainty, and fear of negative evaluation), self-efficacy, persistence, and the cognitive reflection test, and collected demographics, previous mathematics grades, self-reported and official statistics grades, and statistics module details. Data reuse potential is broad, including testing links between anxieties and statistics/mathematics education factors, and examining instruments\’ psychometric properties across different languages and contexts. Data and metadata are stored on the Open Science Framework website [https://osf.io/mhg94/]