Ursula Apitzsch
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9781861344939
- eISBN:
- 9781447301554
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
- DOI:
- 10.1332/policypress/9781861344939.003.0003
- Subject:
- Sociology, Social Research and Statistics
The structural crisis in the post-industrial society since the last third of the twentieth century was marked by the continuous eradication of jobs and workplaces without compensation in sight. This ...
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The structural crisis in the post-industrial society since the last third of the twentieth century was marked by the continuous eradication of jobs and workplaces without compensation in sight. This has impelled intellectuals and policymakers to speak in terms of the ‘economically redundant’, in as much as the same way that industrialisation discourse during the nineteenth century spoke of a ‘a surplus population’. However, in the eyes of neoliberal economists, a sector of migrant population in industrial societies seemed to be crisis-resistant. On the basis of their niche economies, these entrepreneurial migrants seemed to be able to develop economic resources out of ethnic networks, ethnic skills and ethnic financial models. This chapter discusses questions concerning entrepreneurial migrants and ethnic economies in three steps. First, it discusses the wider relevance of issues involved in the concept of ethnic business to European self-employment policies as a whole. Here, the chapter refers particularly to the concept of the mixed ‘mixed embeddeness of migrant self-employed’ in the context of the European welfare model. The chapter then considers the gender issues that are associated with different forms of biographic processes of self-employment. Next, this chapter presents the empirical results of a study focused on biographical aspects of this topic. It considers the gender-specific implications of new forms of entrepreneurship and professional practice for policy evaluation. The chapter concludes by commenting on the concept of ‘active citizenship policies’ in support of self-employment projects.Less
The structural crisis in the post-industrial society since the last third of the twentieth century was marked by the continuous eradication of jobs and workplaces without compensation in sight. This has impelled intellectuals and policymakers to speak in terms of the ‘economically redundant’, in as much as the same way that industrialisation discourse during the nineteenth century spoke of a ‘a surplus population’. However, in the eyes of neoliberal economists, a sector of migrant population in industrial societies seemed to be crisis-resistant. On the basis of their niche economies, these entrepreneurial migrants seemed to be able to develop economic resources out of ethnic networks, ethnic skills and ethnic financial models. This chapter discusses questions concerning entrepreneurial migrants and ethnic economies in three steps. First, it discusses the wider relevance of issues involved in the concept of ethnic business to European self-employment policies as a whole. Here, the chapter refers particularly to the concept of the mixed ‘mixed embeddeness of migrant self-employed’ in the context of the European welfare model. The chapter then considers the gender issues that are associated with different forms of biographic processes of self-employment. Next, this chapter presents the empirical results of a study focused on biographical aspects of this topic. It considers the gender-specific implications of new forms of entrepreneurship and professional practice for policy evaluation. The chapter concludes by commenting on the concept of ‘active citizenship policies’ in support of self-employment projects.
