Chinese Green Tea in Mali, Cultural Mobility and African Agency in the Global South

Abstract

Abstract The paper offers insights from ethnographic research that reach beyond general assumptions of the working of globalization, especially in the Global South. It examines the ways in which the arrival of products made in China, namely green tea, has influenced the everyday of people in Mali, modifying consumption practices and the business landscape. Chinese green tea, which is known in the Sahel countries of West Africa since the 19th century, has gradually found more and more consumers in Mali, so that from the 2000s onwards tons of green tea arrive every month in the country. Most Malians, the paper shows, consume green tea several times a day and identify with the beverage to such an extent that it has even become their national drink. The paper further shows how, in spite of concerns of product durability and health standard, other industrially manufactured Chinese commodities, too, have replaced locally-made products but, at the same time, enabled people to connect to a global lifestyle. In essence, the insights the paper provides from ethnographic research on the circulation of green tea deepen understanding of how Chinese commodities become culturally appropriated or integrated with local everyday practices.