Paper info

Migrant entrepreneur in-between networks: a liminal perspective to migrant entrepreneurship

Paul Lassalle and John Nicholson

The paper was published at the 35th IMP-conference in Paris, France in 2019.

In this paper, we propose to adopt the lens of liminality to capture the transitional and evolving nature of network embeddedness in the process of migrant entrepreneurship, as an act situated “betwixt and between” networks. We further analyse the process in relation to market access and opportunity creation. Applied to migration and entrepreneurship as processes, the notion of liminality highlights the importance of the act of migration, whereby individuals are becoming migrants (as a process of integration as well as of identity construction) and entrepreneurs. Using the lens of liminality also helps capturing migrant individuals’ interactions and the associated process of socialisation, ultimately leading to the creation of liminal social and geographical spaces of in-betweenness, in which the entrepreneurs are situated and create opportunities in different markets, domestically or transnationally.