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AbstractThis article focuses on China's initial encounter with the African continent from the perspective of a select literature overview. It reflects on the very earliest contacts between dynastic China and ancient Africa and shows that the current contestation in the Western media as well as literature over this more recent contact is not new. Given the dearth and disparate nature of the information on these first encounters, it does this through the lens of what has been written on the subject of the speculated first contact in a selection of secondary English-language literature. It does so by considering the prevalence of such literature in three distinct periods: prior to 1949; from 1950 to 1990; and a selection of research published thereafter. It shows that China's encounter with Africa reaches far back into the history of the continent, but more importantly so does the volatile contestation surrounding the contemporary contact.

AbstractWith the Chinese presence on the African continent being perceived and portrayed as a new global phenomenon there has been a concomitant, albeit sporadic and nuanced, emergence of an aversion to things Chinese, gradually permeating popular consciousness. In a postcolonial world these anti-Sinitic or Sino-phobic sentiments are crudely reminiscent of the late nineteenth century colonial cries of the "yellow peril", which culminated in acts of exclusion and extreme prohibition that singled out and targeted the Chinese in the various colonies across the Atlantic and Pacific including South Africa. This article, however, proposes to trace the genesis of some of anti-Sinicism to a pre-industrial period by considering developments in colonial Southern Africa. It will show how in the early Dutch settler and British colonial periods at the Cape, when the number of Chinese present in the region was miniscule, negative feelings towards the Chinese as the "other" were already apparent and evident in the reactions to them prior to the arrival of the large numbers which came to America, Australasia and Africa from the mid-nineteenth century onwards.

• Opsomming: In hulle poging om die invoer van Chinese kontrakarbeid aan die begin van hierdie eeu te regverdig, het die Randse kapitaliste hierdie potensiële arbeidsmark as gedweë, onderdanig en dienswillig uitgebeeld. Om opposisie te paai, het bulle saam met die Britse koloniale regering beperkende regulasies geformuleer ten einde streng beheer uit te oefen en maksimum resultate uit die Chinese ongeskoolde arbeiders te kry. Ten spyte van hierdie beperkinge het die Chinese, net soos ander geskoolde en ongeskoolde mynwerkers aan die Randse myne, die uitbuiting deur die kapitalistiese stelsel aktief teengestaan met alle moontlike metodes tot hulle beskikking. Hierdie weerstand het van drostery tot algemene weiering om te werk gestrek, die opvatting van 'n passiewe en onderdanige Chinese arbeidsmag weerlê en terselfdertyd die omvang en aard van arbeids aktiwiteite aan die Randse goudmyne uitgebrei. ; • Summary: In their efforts to justify the importation of Chinese indentured labour on the gold mines at the turn of this century, the Rand capitalists portrayed this potential workforce as docile, submissive and obedient In order to appease opposition, they, together with the British colonial government, drafted restrictive regulations to exercise extreme control and exact maximum output from the Chinese unskilled labourers. However, despite these constraints, the Chinese, not unlike the other skilled and unskilled employees on the Rand mines, actively resisted the exploitation of the capitalist system by all means at their disposal. This resistance, which ranged from desertion to general refusal to work, disproved conceptions of a passive and submissive Chinese workforce, while at the same time augmented the scope and nature of labour activity on the Rand gold mines.

Examines the merits of job breadth as a construct reflecting discretionary work behavior, and the influence that a supervisor is likely to have on an employee's developing job breadth. Surveys were completed by employees from long‐term care facilities in the mid‐western USA. Results indicated that job breadth was most strongly, and positively, related to the quality of employee‐supervisor relationship. Further, evidence suggested that a worker and supervisor do not necessarily perceive the boundaries of a job in an identical manner.