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  • Publication
    Accès libre
    Transnational migrant entrepreneurs: understanding their dependencies, fragilities, and alternatives
    Recent research highlights that the activities of migrant entrepreneurs increasingly extend beyond national borders, thus making them relevant actors of globalization. Nevertheless, the socio-spatial conditions that frame their cross-border activities are still poorly understood. The aim of this article is twofold: first, we apply the lens of ‘globalization from below’ to study small-scale transnational migrant entrepreneurs (TMEs), thereby providing new insights into less visible globalization processes; second, we show that TMEs are not simply free economic agents but depend on connections in local and transnational spaces. Inspired by the literature on dependencies and feminist approaches, we develop a typology to address the following research question: Under which conditions is relying on others beneficial for transnational migrant entrepreneurship, and under which conditions does it lead to precariousness? Building on 86 semi-structured interviews in Colombia, Spain, and Switzerland, we uncover the diverse nature ofdependencies and reveal the unequal opportunities TMEs face.
  • Publication
    Accès libre
    Entrepreneurship as Self-improvement : Stories of Freedom and Precarity among Self-employed People on the Move in São Paulo and Barcelona
    Lorena Izaguirre
    ;
    Research on neo-nomadism has focused mainly on privileged forms of lifestyle migration, portraying these practices as individual choices but paying little attention to their embeddedness in constraining socioeconomic structures. Yet, neo-nomadic practices are increasingly involving lower- to middle-class people. They may experience a sense of freedom and subjective upward social mobility; however, their lives are also marked by precarious conditions. We investigate this tension through ethnographic research and interviews with digital nomads in coworking spaces in Barcelona and street vendors in São Paulo. We analyse the links between selfemployment and neo-nomadism in their trajectories by drawing on literature on subjective social mobility. We find that emic definitions of “moving up” among our research participants involve three existential dimensions: (1) the quest for freedom, or the subjective sense of social mobility associated with mastering one’s time and choices; (2) the valuation of flexibility, or positive imaginaries of (transnational) spatial mobility and its advantages; and (3) the desire for personal growth, connected with discourses of self-improvement, self-reliance, and individualisation. We argue that entrepreneurship can be analysed as a frame for developing self-reliance and self-improvement in neoliberal contexts