Ethnic Minority Enterprise in its Urban Context: South Asian Restuarants in Birmingham

Monder Ram, Trevor Jones, Tahir Abbas and Balihar Sanghera

International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 2002, vol. 26, issue 1, 24-40

Abstract: The embeddedness of ethnic minority business activity is widely accepted, as researchers increasingly eschew ethno‐culturalist explanations of the phenomenon. However, despite the importance of urban processes, studies of ethnic minority enterprise are often ‘spaceless’. This article uses Rekers and van Kempen’s urban spatial framework to assess the experiences of South Asian owners in Birmingham’s restaurant industry. One taken‐for‐granted but evidently important element to which this article draws attention is location, which emerges as one of the key points of differentiation within the ethnic business community. Location is seen to influence individual access to market potential, an unevenly distributed resource largely shaped by local social geography. At the same time, entry into more lucrative market niches is heavily dependent on the possession of other resources such as capital, information and in some instances management skills. Si l’intégration d’entreprises créées par des minorités ethniques est largement admise, les chercheurs évitent de plus en plus les explications ethno‐culturalistes du phénomène. Par ailleurs, malgré l’importance des processus urbains, les études sur ces entreprises n’ont souvent pas de ‘bornes’. Cet article utilise le cadre spatial urbain de Rekers et van Kempen pour évaluer les expériences de propriétaires de restaurants sud‐asiatiques à Birmingham. Il attire l’attention sur une composante normale, quoique manifestement importante: le lieu. Celui‐ci apparaît comme l’un des points de différenciation essentiels au sein de la communautééconomique ethnique. Il influence l’accès individuel au marché potentiel, ressource inégalement répartie et largement configurée par la géographie sociale locale. Parallèlement, une pénétration de niches de marché plus lucratives dépend considérablement de la détention d’autres ressources, telles qu’un capital, des informations et, dans certains cas, des compétences de dirigeant.

Date: 2002
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