This article explores how identity and otherness function together within the ethnic consumption market in France, as far as commercial interactions are concerned. It is based on extensive fieldwork carried out in the Poitou-Charentes region with migrants from Sub-Saharan Africa. My objective is twofold: first, to emphasize the necessity of rejecting essentialist definitions of ethnicity. The second is to explore how African merchants work with ideas of otherness and reinterpret certain cultural meanings, according to the definition of the situation and ongoing social relations. From a comparative analysis of three situational areas (itinerant, African and festival markets), I will try to shed light on the variation of identity strategies I have observed, as well as the issues and constraints they involve.