Beyond Informality: How Chinese Migrants Transformed a Border Economy

Chinese migrants are playing increasingly large, stratified roles in the informal economies of South America. One of the clearest examples of this phenomenon is in the region’s largest informal economy, of counterfeit and smuggled goods, extending from Ciudad del Este, the Paraguayan border city, to São Paulo, Brazil’s largest metropolis. Here Chinese vendors are among the most marginalized of workers, facing a doubly difficult landscape because of their precarious immigration status and their illegal economic activities. They work on the margins of the law and, as a result, do not always reap the benefits of their own labor. A transnational elite of Chinese businesspeople, on the other hand, profit and profiteer from the booming market. They use their economic, social, and political power to bend the law to their advantage and get away with irregularities, violations, and criminal behavior. In Beyond Informality, Douglas de Toledo Piza reveals the complex ways these actors interact with one another and the way the law shapes those interactions. He argues that structural inequalities in the global economy push Chinese workers to emigrate to South America while placing them, surprisingly, in a position to overhaul markets and overturn deep-seated power structures in the Global South.