跨文化日常生活中的相互理解和文化适应——以加纳恩科兰扎小城中资KH农业公司为例

Mutual Understanding and Acculturation in Intercultural Daily Life——A Case Study of the Chinese-funded KH Agricultural Company in Nkoranza,Ghana

随着“走出去”和“一带一路”倡议的深入进展,越来越多中国企业前往非洲进行投资并且深入当地社区进行运营,在企业的日常生活中,难免于内部和外部与当地社区的不同层面的行动者展开深入互动,并且同时包含着经营活动和日常生活,这两者之间相互融合、相互影响,有时候很难剥离开来。本文以一家在加纳推广蓖麻的农业公司为例,其与加纳员工、社区居民和当地权威的互动围绕着“利益—规范”两个层面不断展开。双方在日常生活中的信任不充足、情感上的不适应以及权力关系的不对等,造成他们处于极不稳定的状态,在一些偶然事件的冲击下,造成矛盾一步步升级,这家中国企业不得不草草结束经营,退出加纳。这也为中国企业在海外经营提出了警示和告诫,特别是对那些深度卷入当地社区的企业,不仅要处理好经营活动中的“利益—规范”互动,还需要在日常生活中与当地社区不同层面的行动者达成相互理解和适应。

With the progress of“going out”and the Belt and Road Initiative,more and more Chinese enterprises are investing in Africa and operating in local communities,and Chinese enterprises have to interact with different local actors both internally and externally.In general,the activities of Chinese enterprises in local communities can be divided into business activities and daily life.Previous studies on this subject have mostly focused on market or labor-related business activities,but neglected the daily interaction with local communities.For firms rooted in local communities,especially small private firms like KH Agriculture,its interactions include both local employees within the company and also require constant interactions with local community residents,traditional authorities,police,and other administrative agencies.For them,there is no clear-cut distinction between business activities and daily life,on the one hand,the two parts intermingle and influence each other.On the other hand,the smoothness of daily life can influence business activities,and when the relationships in daily life are relatively stable or amicable,the company’s business activities can be carried out relatively smoothly;however,when the equilibrium of certain relationships in daily life is disturbed,it can affect business activities,in extreme cases,lead to a complete failure of the business.Thus,everyday life offers a direction:a way of looking and analyzing,to explore the tensions surrounding the interactions between scale,time,the visible and invisible,the tangible and the intangible,the structural and the local.Rather than replacing the fundamental questions of previous research,the type of observation and attention associated with everyday life can shed some new light,revealing new light,perspectives and facets,and improving the understanding of social phenomena,whether they are usually unknown or compelling.In the study of social life,everyday life has become a special interest in observing ordinary things and the seemingly insignificant routines and activities of daily life,as well as in paying attention to different groups of“ordinary people”,who are treated as creative actors rather than passive consumers or objects of domination.The definition of“everyday life”has different connotations in different subject of social sciences,but in general,the study of everyday life has often developed as an alternative to or critique of the dominant research tradition.Thus,the concept is in fact constantly constructed in relation to other things that are in a relative position.It is the study of the lives and thoughts of ordinary people,which can also be defined as routines,habits,and phenomena that have been neglected in previous studies because their“everydayness”is different from the richness of rituals,celebrations,or other highly visible or prestigious events,and therefore invisible.Early media coverage and scholarship on Chinese activities in Africa focused on macroeconomic and political aspects,mostly in the realm of macro international relations.Such macroscopic studies mainly analyzed“China”and“Africa”as a homogeneous category,thus revealing a number of shortcomings.First,they ignore important changes in the Chinese experience of Africa,particularly the fact that Chinese characteristics vary from one historical period to another,from one profession to another,from one source to another,not to mention the fact that Africa is inherently a continent of diversity,with similarities between countries as well as their own particularities.Second,the macro perspective tends to assume the passivity of individuals and groups and largely ignores their role and influence;and finally,macro-level studies run the risk of re-enforcing and pre-existing western stereotypes about China and Africa,with the consequence of imposing an inherent bias in the analysis when interpreting China and China-Africa relations.This paper borrows the analytical framework of the“interest-norm”dual game theory proposed by Professor Liu Shiding,who suggests that the formation and changes of the“interest and norm”patterns of people need to be examined in the context of their dual interactions.In other words,it focuses on both the interaction of interests among people and the interaction of norms among people who carry different norms.This study attempts to borrow the basic assumptions about people’s basic assumptions from this framework.That is,the interaction participants are people who are both interacted with interests and norms.It is also assumed that there may be differences in the norms that they each carry in their interactions.A clear definition of“interests”and“norms”is needed first.In this framework,“interests”refers to“the advantages that material resources bring to people”,thus distinguishing it from the concept of utility in contemporary economics.At the same time,unlike previous studies that have typically treated“norms”as an indirect variable affecting utility,here“norms”have a direct effect on utility,rooted in the state of social norms internalized in people’s mental preferences,rather than in a consideration of how norms affect access to resources.In their daily lives in Africa,Chinese companies are clearly subject to their own interests and norms in their interactions with local people.Thus,by using this basic assumption,we can open up the specific process of microinteraction between the two sides from their different claims on interests and different normative calibrations,not only limited to a simple description of the interaction,but also a“thick description”on the basics of a structure of the interaction.The first step required in structured deep description model is to specify the environment,that is,the structural conditions,in which both parties interact.On this basis,the narrative is driven forward through the process of interaction between the two parties in different events,allowing us to analyze the causes of the events and the effects of the different factors in their progress,as well as these effects in the subsequent events.The main subject of this study is a Chinese agricultural company which called KH Agricultural that promotes castor cultivation in Ghana,with their operations and daily life in the small Ghanaian town called Nkoranza,which has entered Ghana in 2015 and adopts the“company plus farmer”model,which is very popular in China.Based on the promotion model,KH has adopted a staff structure of“Chinese local managers plus local staff”.The Chinese managers are responsible for the day-to-day operations of the company,including work planning,daily extension arrangements,financial coordination,seed adaptation trials,etc.In addition to managing the day-today operations of the company locally,the managers are usually technicians with many years of experience in castor cultivation,and are therefore also involved in training and explaining techniques to local staff and farmers.The local staff are divided into translators and mechanics.The translators are usually Ghanaian students who have studied in China,and they are responsible for helping both sides to communicate smoothly when they work,and at some stages they take on some of the promotion and supervision work.At the same time,since the company staff basically live together in one house,the interpreter also undertakes some tasks in daily life such as purchasing supplies,charging cards,cleaning,etc.,so he interacts more frequently and has a closer relationship with the Chinese staff.The local technicians mainly assist the managers in extension and field management,and also help to take care of the castor fields where the company carries out breeding.On the one hand,they encountered many ups and downs in the operation and management of the business,and the conflict between the investors and the actual directors led to some irreversible negative consequences,which certainly contributed to the company’s eventual failure.But on the other hand,because of the special nature of agricultural companies,Chinese and local people live under the same roof and their business activities and daily life are inevitably mixed together;and because the daily life is in a small town,there is an inevitable need to interact with the community,government agencies and local authorities,and whether the interaction with these different objects is smooth.From this perspective,we must start from the perspective of the daily life of the company,digging into the process of its interaction with the different local players and analyzing the impact it has on both sides.As we can see from the story,the interaction between the two parties in their daily lives is actually a double interaction,that is,it revolves around both the“interests”dimension and the“norms”dimension.For example,in the car theft incident,Charles thinks he may suffer from the loss of profit,so he adopts an extreme strategy,but this strategy is actually against the“norms”held by both parties,and also intensifies the latent problems.Therefore,only when equilibrium is reached in both dimensions can the operation remain relatively stable.Unfortunately,due to insufficient trust,emotional dissonance,and unequal power relations,the equilibrium in their dual“interest-norm”interactions is always unstable.Under the impact of unexpected events,the conflict continues to unfold in this state,and new or hidden objects of interaction are constantly added,thus affecting the course and direction of the event,so that the equilibrium eventually breaks down completely.In the course of the subsequent interactions,we can also see that the attitudes and opinions of the Chinese and the locals towards the event itself,and by extension,other things beyond the event,reflect a deeper relationship between the Chinese and the African.It is from the insecurity of living in an unfamiliar place that we can see the value of daily life in the personal experience of“Stone”and the local community,and by immersing ourselves in the small courtyard of Nkoranza that we can understand the source of his emotions and anger,continually reinforcing the original perception while bringing about a deepening of misunderstanding.As the local head of the company,this choice also leads to organizational difficulties,which shows that“enclave”operation is not the best choice for such companies embedded in the local community,as it may bring short-term psychological comfort,but in the long run it is more likely to cause greater risks.At the same time,it is only by entering into everyday life that we can truly understand the local community in a cross-cultural context.The reason why Charles would use such an extreme means to defend his“interests”undoubtedly stems from his own judgment of the situation,namely that the Chinese company was not prepared to pay compensation,a judgment that reinforces the local people’s original impression of outsiders as“predators”,who only seek benefits in the local community and leave after gaining them,without following the rules.More importantly,in the daily interactions between the locals and the Chinese,the two sides have never built up enough understanding as well as trust,resulting in a constant superficial understanding between the two sides without being able to reach a deeper level of identification.This also illustrates the problem that interaction,especially in cross-cultural contexts,does not necessarily lead to mutual understanding,but may also lead to deepening misunderstanding.The interaction in their daily lives involves two aspects,with different objects holding their own dual“interest-norm”claims,which include both interest claims,i.e.,the desire for financial gain,and normative influences,i.e.,the social culture in which they live.This paper attempts to identify the“interest”and“norm”claims of each pair of relatively specific objects,to give a simple interaction structure,and to analyze the relationship between these two claims of different interactors from this base.From this base,we analyze the relationship between these two demands of different interactors and the resulting different states of interaction and consequences.This is a concrete attempt to structure a deeper description,to include the interactors under the structure of the double game analysis,to identify their specific factors in terms of interests and norms,and to be able to understand more clearly the psychological structure at the time of the event.And under this structure,we can also see that the lack of understanding in cross-cultural interactions does not simply come from a conflict of interests or a mere stereotype of a foreign culture,but rather is a holistic result of these two or even more factors interacting together and festering.Therefore,when we study cross-cultural interactions,we need to pay attention to both of these factors and observe the process of action and the logical reasons behind the action,so that we can also provide more references and possibilities for mutual understanding between cross-cultures.