Chapter 5 Leadership, Danwei and Asymmetrical Attentiveness

Work Relations at a Chinese Educational Farm in Zambia

In: Destination Africa
Author:
Di Wu
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Abstract

Labour conflict at Chinese companies in Africa is a widely reported phenomenon by various media and scholars in the West. Based on my 16-month ethnographic research at a Chinese educational farm and a Chinese construction company at Lusaka, Zambia, this chapter is intended to document the daily quarrels and negotiations between Chinese managers and Zambian workers. Beyond the usual story of mutual exploitation, I focus instead on how disagreements and conflicts are a result of contradictory practices in leadership and managerial care at work. More specifically, my ethnographic data will show that, to Zambians, the boss should actively attend to the needs of the worker, whereas, to Chinese, it is the subordinate who should look after the manager. Therefore, in the former case, care in work relationships is directed downwards, but in the latter case, care is directed upwards. Consequently, there is a mismatch of affective performance at work. Furthermore, I will argue that this mismatch is partly due to the difference in the nationalities’ respective historical institutions where labour practices are developed, focusing especially on the importance of the danwei (work-unit) for the Chinese.

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