Jixia, Lu2021-11-092021-11-0922069119http://hdl.handle.net/1885/251681While China’s expanding presence in Africa is often framed as a new project in empire building, the Chinese authorities explain their engagement on the continent as simple ‘SouthSouth cooperation’. Taking the agricultural sector in Ghana as a case study, this article challenges both narratives and argues that Chinese farmers in Africa are not a ‘silent army’ (either malevolent or benevolent), but instead are largely precarious individuals attempting to meet their livelihood needs.en-AUAuthor/s retain copyrighthttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/2016-0910.22459/MIC.01.03.2016.05Creative Commons licence (CC BY-NC-ND; creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)