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O próximo Encontro sobre os Estudos da China regressa na tarde de 24 de setembro de 2025, entre as 13h30 e as 15h, dedicado ao tema "A Grassroots Perspective on China’s Global Digital Power: Using WeChat and WhatsApp in the Chinese-Mozambican Fashion Trade".
A oradora convidada é Johanna von Pezold, investigadora da Universidade de Amesterdão, e o comentário será da responsabilidade de Gonçalo Santos, investigador da Universidade de Coimbra.
ABSTRACT
Combining online and offline data collection during six months of ethnographic fieldwork in Southern Mozambique in early 2021, this paper explores how media and its everyday use in the Global South are impacting on, and are in turn being transformed by China. It specifically looks into the creative and highly personalised ways in which Chinese-made garments are sold and promoted in Mozambique via the messenger service WhatsApp. Examining how Mozambican and West African traders use both WeChat and WhatsApp, this paper shows that the consequences of Chinese interactions with the Global South on the global media landscape transcend the mere spread of Chinese hard- and software. Going beyond official soft power initiatives, the activities of large, often state-backed corporations, and other dominant, state-centred narratives of Chinese influence abroad, this paper demonstrates the key role of (both Chinese and non-Chinese) individuals and their agency in shaping the digital impact of Global China.
