Globalizations from below: understanding the spatialities, mobilities and resources of transnational migrant entrepreneurs across the globe

ABSTRACT

Transnational corporations have been long recognized as the building blocks of global system theory and their impact is widely acknowledged and studied. By comparison, we have insufficient understanding of transnational practices ‘from below’. We argue that focusing on transnational migrant entrepreneurship is a novel opportunity to gain insights into the social and economic processes of ‘globalization from below’. Such processes refer to the dynamics and practices initiated by actors outside the hegemonic socio-economic spheres who, using various resources, move people, goods and ideas across national borders to create small-scale enterprises thus connecting distant places and people around the world. This special issue brings together a transdisciplinary group of researchers who examine the spatialities, mobilities and resources of transnational migrant entrepreneurs in Asia, Europe, North Africa, South America and the USA. The rich empirical base, coupled with diverse research methods, provides new insights into the phenomenon to scholars, policymakers and practitioners.

KEYWORDS:

• Migrant entrepreneurship
• transnationalism
• globalization
• spatialities
• mobilities
• resources
• gender

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the ‘nccr – on the move’, National Centre of Competence in Research – ‘The Migration-Mobility Nexus’ (https://nccr-onthemove.ch/), [grant 51NF40-182897 to Yvonne Riaño for IP32 project], which is funded by the Swiss National Science Research Foundation (SNF).

Notes on contributors

Yvonne Riaño

Yvonne Riaño is a Professor at the Institute of Geography of the University of Neuchatel (Switzerland), the President of the Swiss Association of Geography (ASG) and the President of the Swiss National Committee of the International Geographical Union (IGU). She received her PhD in Human Geography in 1996 from the University of Ottawa, Canada. She uses a gender perspective and participatory and film-making methodologies to examine the inclusion and exclusion of highly skilled immigrants, the transnational entrepreneurial strategies of migrants, the socio-economic integration of returnees, the policies of states toward international student mobility, and the self-governance of low-income communities in Latin American barrios. She has published in international peer-reviewed journals such as Environment and Planning A; Equality, Diversity and Inclusion; Géo-Regards, Globalizations; Geographie und Landeskunde; German Journal of Economic Geography; Globalisation, Societies and Education; Journal of International Migration and Integration; International Migrations, Nouvelles Questions Féministes, Oxford Bibliographies, Population, Space and Place, Qualitative Research, Societies and the Swiss Journal of Integration and Migration.

Natasha Webster

Natasha Webster is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Human Geography at Örebro University, Sweden. She obtained her PhD in Human Geography in 2017 from Stockholm University. As a feminist geographer, Natasha is interested in the complexities of social-technical-spatial relations in work(ing)-life practices. Her recent research falls within economic geography by exploring the role of women-led entrepreneurship and platform-work in migration and integration. Natasha is an Associate Editor at the journal Emotion, Space and Society. She is on the editorial board for Digital Geography and Society. She has extensively published in journals such as Digital Geography and Society, Geography Compass, Urban Transformations, Norwegian Journal of Geography, Spatial Demography, Applied Spatial Analysis and Policy, Entrepreneurship, Theory and Practice, Emotion, Space and Society, Journal of Feminist and Gender Research, and Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography.

Laure Sandoz

Laure Sandoz is a Coordinator and Scientific Officer at the Swiss Centre of Expertise in Life Course Research, LIVES at the University of Lausanne. She obtained her PhD in Anthropology in 2018 from the University of Basel. Her research interests include entrepreneurship and highly skilled migration, the interplay between mobility and social inequality, the influence of economic actors on migration processes, and the transformation of labor relations. Her work is published in international peer-reviewed journals such as Advances in Economic Geography, Anthropologica, Géoregards, Globalizations, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Migration Letters, and Societies. She is the author of a Springer IMISCOE Research Series book on the recruitment of highly skilled migrants by state and economic actors in Switzerland, and she guest-edited a special issue of Migration Letters on processes of definition and implementation of selective migration policies.

Giacomo Solano

Giacomo Solano is Assistant Professor in Migrant Inclusion at the Nijmegen School of Management, Department of Economics and Business Economics. He is affiliated with the Radboud University Network on Migrant Inclusion (RUNOMI, https://www.ru.nl/runomi/), and he cooperates with the Global Data Lab (https://globaldatalab.org/). He holds a PhD (2016) in Social Sciences from the University of Amsterdam and the University of Milan-Bicocca (joint degree). His research interests include social and labour market integration of migrants, migrant entrepreneurship, comparative integration policies, social dynamics in developing countries and social network analysis. His work has been published in international peer-reviewed journals such as Comparative Migration Studies, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Migration Studies, and Social Networks.

Sakura Yamamura

Sakura Yamamura is a Professor of Human Geography at the RWTH Aachen University, Germany. She studied geography, sociology, and social/cultural anthropology at the University of Hamburg, Université de Paris 1 – Sorbonne, and the University of California at Berkeley. With her expertise in migration studies, and urban and economic geography, her work focuses on the spatiality of societal diversities in urban contexts. Her social geographical research encompasses different topics surrounding transnational economic and social activities and their multi-scalar contextual embeddedness. One research strand is the exploration and conceptualization of issues of superdiversity along with intersectionality in the context of ethnic minority and migrant entrepreneurship. Her work has been published in journals, such as Urban Studies, Global Networks, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, International Migration, Comparative Migration Studies, Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, European Planning Studies, and Area Development and Policy.