“…China Is Not a Country That You Can Just Leave…”: Vortex of Relationality and Networking in Post-deportation Lives of Nigerian Men

Paper Abstract: What form do relationships and networking take between Nigerian deportees and co-nationals in Chinese cities? How does the answer to this question reveal the continuing socio-economic importance and promise of China to Africans partaking in Africa-China migrations? The imagination of China’s promise, as well as the relationality and networking between Nigerian deportees and Nigerians in China continue to shape the post-deportation experiences in ways that current Africa-China migration discussion has not interrogated. The present contribution explores this thesis using qualitative data collected from 21 Nigerian male deportees at the height of COVID-19 pandemic. Findings show that, despite their deportation and separation from spaces of active economic participation in Chinese cities, China remains a land of promise and abundant opportunities in the imaginations of Nigerian deportees. Second, through the relationality of familiarity, dependency and exchange, China continues to play an important role in deportees’ transnational livelihood strategy and post-deportation economic coping. Third, deportees’ “China network”, forged individually or as part of an ethnic community abroad and virtually maintained, creates a social space of not only engagement but also of reckoning, detachment and acceptance to move on with life after China. This contribution advances the Africa-China field by arguing that while deportation is often experienced as a finality, the reality and intensity of relationality and networking between here and there also create a cross-border social field for deportees through which they interact, maintain linkages, pursue livelihood and move on from deportation disruption.