The question at hand is political!

Previous research has already established that migrant entrepreneurial activity emerges as an outcome of a process which cannot be reduced to individual decision making. There is a set of political and economic conditions – of which access to essential resources (1), distribution of opportunities (2), reception of host societies (3) and the quality of state governance (4) are to name a few – inform different stages of migrant entrepreneuring.  

Construed as creation of value for customers/users/residents/citizens in the form of service or product, entrepreneurship is also to be articulated happening in spaces where economic actors connect with institutionalised body of knowledge(s) and doing(s) (5). In such a process, power dynamics that come into play in the formations of entrepreneurial activity are historical and manifest in complex social fields. Both material and immaterial aspects of host societies (any given human togetherness) thus become constituents of migrant entrepreneuring. In other words, not only inter and intragroup relations, but also distribution of spaces, resources, rewards as well attributions of worth and value give way to who, when and where can become an entrepreneur (6).

The question of immigrant female entrepreneurship is thus a ‘political’ one!

It is a political question for that it pertains to the question of presence in a domain which has played a key role in societies and societal change since the seventeenth century. Entrepreneurship, irrespective of the discourse of individualism upon which it rests, is about space(s) and access, both of which are historical features of human societies. It is, therefore, important to approach female immigrant entrepreneurship as a historically, spatially and temporally shaped phenomenon.

Written by: Yasemin Kontkanen, DSocSci, UEFConnect

References:

1. Elo, M., Ermolaeva, L., Ivanova-Gongne, M., Klishevich, D., Kothari, T., & Wiese, N. (2024). Migrant entrepreneurs: Strategic approaches to overcoming liminality. International Small Business Journal, 42(9), 1074–1102. https://doi.org/10.1177/02662426241258190
2. Wong, L. L., & Ng, M. (1998). Chinese immigrant entrepreneurs in Vancouver: a case study of ethnic business development. Canadian Ethnic Studies, Vol.30(1), 64–85.
3. Kontkanen, Y. (2024). Legitimate Peripheral Entrepreneuring: Somali Immigrant Entrepreneuring in Finland and in the United States. Dissertations in Social Sciences and Business Studies, 324. University of Eastern Finland. https://erepo.uef.fi/handle/123456789/32278.
4. Gawel, A., & Toikko, T. (2023). Quality of Governance and Welfare Generosity as Institutional Predictors of Entrepreneurship: European Perspective. SAGE Open, 13(4). https://doi.org/10.1177/21582440231205670
5. Gherardi, S. (2008). Situated knowledge and situated action: What do practice-based studies promise? In d. Barry, H. Hansen & S. Gherardi (Eds.) The SAGE Handbook of New Approaches in Management and Organization (pp. 516–525). SAGE Publications Ltd, https://doi.org/10.4135/9781849200394.n89.
6. Kontkanen, Y. (2024). Legitimate Peripheral Entrepreneuring: Somali Immigrant Entrepreneuring in Finland and in the United States. Dissertations in Social Sciences and Business Studies, 324. University of Eastern Finland. https://erepo.uef.fi/handle/123456789/32278