Paper short abstract:

This study offers an in-depth examination of a Chinese firm’s digital community business in Kenya, investigating its practices and alignment with the ‘small and beautiful’ development cooperation trend emphasized by the Chinese state.

Paper long abstract:

Many Chinese businesses have embraced the ‘small and beautiful’ principle, focusing on small-scale investments with quick, tangible, and popular results. This marks a new arena in China-Africa development cooperation. However, empirical studies on such practices are scarce.

This study offers an in-depth examination of a Chinese firm’s digital community business in Kenya, investigating its practices and alignment with the ‘small and beautiful’ development cooperation trend emphasized by the Chinese state. Built on the theoretical approach that stresses the multi-dimensional engagements of Chinese actors in a non-holistic and contested manner to shape development cooperation practices, I explore the firm’s intricate dynamics with various contextual actors, including local employees, residents, and partners both from the local and China.

Data was collected during a four-month fieldwork in Nairobi, Kenya, involving interviews with multiple informants.

The study reveals three key findings. First, I reveal how the commercial-oriented business entity identifies niches within communities and integrates itself into the communities to develop its businesses. This underscores the role of African Agency in shaping the firm’s practices. Second, I explain how this firm became apparent in the Chinese state media to represent a ‘small and beautiful’ project in development cooperation. This indicates how Chinese businesses are entangled with the politics of the Chinese state’s development cooperation. Third, I examine how the firm navigates the current geopolitical landscape of development cooperation. This sheds light on how the firm operates within a transnational context to meet and adapt to constraints amidst intensifying geopolitical tensions.