Refugee Subentrepreneurship: The Emergence of a Liquid Cage

Abstract

This article conceptualises refugees’ endeavours for upward social mobility through subentrepreneurship. Subentrepreneurship refers to various self-employment forms that are undeclared to relevant authorities to escape superimposed historical, temporal, spatial, institutional and social contexts, which constrain actors’ entrepreneurial activities. Using a mixed theoretical underpinning combining Mixed Embeddedness (ME) with Weber’s Iron Cage of Rationality (ICR), we signify liquidity of refugee subentrepreneurship, which is neither linear nor long-term rational. A liquid cage is envisaged to allow more freedom as refugees become embedded within intersections between transformative journeys and Constrained Institutional Contexts (CICs). This new theorising signifies a pronounced emphasis on agency whereby refugees cleverly contemplate implicit skills (i.e. unrecognised or downgraded skills), opportunities and processes to escape CICs. The article adds clarity as to how contexts become part of the production of entrepreneurial actions through two-way interactions that promote liquidity, enabling a strong foundation for future research exploring subentrepreneurship.

Contextualising rural entrepreneurship – A strong structuration perspective on gendered-local agency

“…Unlike Stones’ (2005) theorising of active agency as a property of the agent, we propose it is a property that is intertwined with both the internal structure of agents and the external structure of norms and resources in a context, as will be demonstrated in our discussion. This proposal contributes to current debates on entrepreneurial agency (McMullen et al, 2020; Meliou and Edwards, 2017; Refai and McElwee, 2021). This demonstration also responds to calls for empirical evidence highlighting the dynamic interplay between agency and structure in ways that signify an agent’s power of ‘transformative capacity’ (Giddens, 1979, 1984; McMullen et al, 2020; Refai and McElwee, 2021).…”

“…This proposal contributes to current debates on entrepreneurial agency (McMullen et al, 2020; Meliou and Edwards, 2017; Refai and McElwee, 2021). This demonstration also responds to calls for empirical evidence highlighting the dynamic interplay between agency and structure in ways that signify an agent’s power of ‘transformative capacity’ (Giddens, 1979, 1984; McMullen et al, 2020; Refai and McElwee, 2021).…”

“…This depth is generated by uncovering how gendered-local agency is both enabled and constrained through distinct relational gendered interplay (Meliou and Edwards, 2017) on the one hand, and specific locality aspects of rural contexts (Berglund et al, 2016) on the other. The importance of gendered-local agency in contextualising entrepreneurship responds to calls for researching entrepreneurial agency (McMullen et al, 2020; Refai and McElwee, 2021), alongside calls for in-depth exploration of how context supports and fosters the entrepreneurial potential of rural people generally, and women in particular (Saxena 2012). Furthermore, such theorising addresses calls by Brush et al (2009) for research investigating both the embeddedness and context-specificity of entrepreneur actions that largely remain overlooked in most analyses of women, gender and entrepreneurship.…”

Refugee women's entrepreneurship: where from and where to next?

“…Through a closer analysis of the available refugee entrepreneurship literature, it is quickly apparent that this literature is largely gender blind, with refugee women entrepreneurs remaining mostly invisible. Examples of excellent, yet gender blind refugee entrepreneurship research include recent works by Refai and McElwee (2022), Harima (2022), and Skran and Easton-Calabria (2020). However, refugee women's entrepreneurship is considered by policy makers in host countries as a long term resettlement strategy offering a pathway to economic participation and poverty alleviation, and to enhancing engagement and embeddedness within the host nation culture and community.…”

Editorial: Introducing the ‘Festschrift’ in honour of the founding editor – Professor Gerard McElwee

“…He is best known for his contribution to the literature on Rural Entrepreneurship and in particular for his stream of work in relation to ‘ The Entrepreneurial Farmer ’ (Ghouse et al, 2017, 2019; McElwee, 2006; McElwee et al, 2006; McElwee and Annibal, 2010; McElwee and Wood, 2018; Muhammad et al, 2017; Vik and McElwee, 2011). Other notable areas of contribution include ‘ Enterprise and Criminality’ (Bunei et al, 2016; Firth and McElwee, 2007, 2009; McElwee, 2009; McElwee et al, 2017a; Refai and McElwee, 2022; Smith and McElwee, 2013, 2015; Smith et al, 2017; Somerville et al, 2015), ‘ Animateurship ’ (McElwee et al, 2017b) and ‘ Supporting Rural Enterprises ’ (Annibal et al, 2013; Bosworth et al, 2015; De Rosa and McElwee, 2015; DeRosa et al, 2019; Gittins et al, 2020; McElwee and Whittam, 2012). To honour his editorship, pay tribute to his influence in the field and his impact on entrepreneurship scholarship, and to mark this end of an era, this special issue reflects on Gerard's work and considers what we have learned from it; and how can we extend it.…”