Communication Dans Un Congrès Année : 2026

Border-crossing and bordering actors? An ethnography of Chinese cross-border e-traders in Yiwu

Résumé

Academic and public discourses often portray cross-border e-commerce as a bridging activity in a borderless cyberspace. While the emergence and profitability of this trade is based on price differentials across national borders, we know very little about how e-retailers deal with the opportunities and constraints created by border dynamics. Using the example of merchants in the Chinese city of Yiwu, this communication aims to fill this gap by looking more closely at the interaction between cross-border ecommerce actors and border dynamics in mainland China. The empirical data for this research comes from ongoing ethnographic research in Yiwu, the world's largest wholesale market for small goods, with a group of young entrepreneurs (shop owners in International Trade City, e-merchants on Chinese and Western platforms, Temu, Shein, TikTok, Amazon, etc.). I consider Chinese entrepreneurs engaged in digitalized international trade to be actors who are simultaneously involved in the processes of border crossing and bordering. My analysis is threefold: Rather than offering universal access to markets and customers in different countries around the world, digital platforms - on which business strategies are developed - can be better described as cyberspaces that are compartmentalized according to political boundaries and reflect asymmetries of power and wealth. The use of digital technologies in conducting trade reveals processes of cosmopolitanization, but also of encapsulation in the form of ethnocentrism, technological nationalism, etc. The operation of cross-border e-commerce is particularly sensitive to changes in government trade regulations and to the struggle between states for economic sovereignty, as illustrated by the Sino-US trade wars, which require entrepreneurs to take positions and develop adaptation strategies. This paper therefore calls for the adoption of a border perspective to situate global flows within a world system in order to grasp the ambiguity of the role of economic actors in border dynamics.

Fichier non déposé

Dates et versions

hal-05522691 , version 1 (22-02-2026)

Identifiants

  • HAL Id : hal-05522691 , version 1

Citer

Yong Li. Border-crossing and bordering actors? An ethnography of Chinese cross-border e-traders in Yiwu. The 8th Asian Borderlands Research Network Conference, Asian Borderlands Research Network, Jan 2026, Taipei, Taiwan. ⟨hal-05522691⟩
54 Consultations
0 Téléchargements

Partager

  • More