This article analyzes the Chinese business associations in Chile in terms of their forms of composition, operation, institutionalization of hierarchies and legitimacy, on the one hand, in front of the Chinese state and, on the other, in front of the Chilean state and society. The interviews and ethnographic work with 19 Chinese business associations in Chile allow us to propose that 1) they articulate specific territorial relations with their spaces of origin, 2) their membership and leadership are built from the generation of monetary and symbolic debts between individual and institutional actors, 3) tend to consolidate mediation mechanisms between the interests of their members, state policies in origin and their accommodation in the social and political structures in Chile.
Keywords:
Chinese associations, entrepreurship, migration, Chile, Huaqiao
Moraga, J., Saavedra, A., Garcés, A., & Wu, Q. (2021). Chinese business associationism in Chile. Territory, leaderships, and social actors. Revista Chilena De Antropología, (44), 322–337. https://doi.org/10.5354/0719-1472.2021.61605
