Mobility itineraries: migration and trade between Sao Paulo, Guangzhou and Yiwu

• In Event: New Chinese Immigrants to Urban Latin America: Migration and Entrepreneurship

Abstract

The growth of China's migration to Brazil accompanies the advance of socioeconomic relations with China. We see in the city of São Paulo a great concentration of Chinese migrants in the commercial galleries of the central region of the city, especially in the famous "25 de Março" street Brás neighborhoods, trading goods which are directly imported from their country of origin. The circulation of people is a constituent part of the construction of trade relations between the two countries and, in particular, establishes a link between markets in São Paulo downtown and those of the cities of Guangzhou and Yiwu in Southern China. In this paper, I propose to analyze this specific process of Chinese migration and its impact on the development of popular markets in the center of São Paulo, as well as the transnational dynamics that are established with some markets in the cities of Guangzhou and Yiwu. The idea is to consider the incorporation of transnational migration processes into their impact on the restructuring of localities, trying to reflect on this migration process in the city scale, thinking about its urban impact and the transnational dynamic that it articulates. The development and transformation of 25 de março and Brás popular markets, together with the influence of Chinese migration in the production and renewal of these spaces, reveal to us an important dimension of the relationship between the two countries, showing connections with some specific spaces in China that are structuring this type of transnational trade.

Author

• Carlos Freire da Silva