Adebayo, K. O.2023-06-082023-06-0820200851-7762ui_art_adebayo_academic_2021Journal of Higher Education in African 18(1), pp. 1-22http://ir.library.ui.edu.ng/handle/123456789/8222Since the emergence of China in the geopolitical and economic spaces of Africa, academics have followed China and African people moving in both directions and conducted on-the-ground, cross-border ethnographies. However, academics are not equally mobile. This auto ethnography analyses the intersections of ethnography, mobility and knowledge production on ‘Africans in China’ through a critical exploration of the contextual issues shaping the unequal participation of Africa-based researchers in the study of Africa(n)s in a non-African setting. Based on experiences before, during and after migration to Guangzhou city, I demonstrate that ‘being there,’ fetishised as ideal-type anthropology, conceals privilege and racial and power dynamics that constrain the practice of cross-border ethnography in the global South.enAcademic (Im)mobility: ecology of ethnographic research and knowledge production on Africans in ChinaArticle