The Promises of Migrant Entrepreneurship: A Kaleidoscopic Exploration

There are approximately one billion entrepreneurs—self-employed workers or business developers—around the world, among them are millions of migrants. Successful migrant entrepreneurship is a central pillar of the migration and development nexus—the neoliberal prescription for the alleviation of poverty wherein out-migration is thought to allow for the accumulation of financial and human capital that can be deployed in the service of businesses to lift families and communities out of poverty. But is the promise of migrant entrepreneurship realised? Are there differences in the experiences and outcomes of returned or diasporic migrant entrepreneurs from disparate gendered and cultural backgrounds and the contexts from or in which they function? In this chapter, I use a kaleidoscopic lens to examine migrant entrepreneurship in both diasporic and home country contexts. To date, there is little evidence grounded in migrant experience in support of the migration and development paradigm. There are some instances of personal and material success associated with migrant entrepreneurship. I contend that research that deploys an intersectional lens is needed to account for the myriad variations of, and contexts in which, migrant entrepreneurs operate. These data generated will help inform and problematise the assertions of the migration and development paradigm.