Informal Refugee Entrepreneurship: Narratives of Economic Empowerment

Salime Mehtap and Abdul Ghafoor Al-Saidi
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Salime Mehtap: American University of Kuwait
Abdul Ghafoor Al-Saidi: Princess Sumaya University for Technology

A chapter in Informal Ethnic Entrepreneurship, 2019, pp 225-242 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Jordan hosts a total of 1.4 million Syrian refugees. This exploratory, qualitative study presents the narratives of five Syrian refugees engaged in informal entrepreneurship in Jordan. It aims to provide a better understanding of their motives and the challenges they faced as they tried to create home-based business in a patriarchal and conservative context. Purposeful sampling was employed to recruit participants. A semi structured interview guide was used to interview the refugees. Content analysis was used to identify recurring themes present in the data and amongst refugee narratives. Refugee motivations were a combination of push and pull factors whereas, finding start-up capital, hostility from locals and work-life balance were cited as the major challenges faced. The study highlights how entrepreneurship can be used as a means of survival and economic empowerment under dire circumstances. It also draws attention to how these types of activities may help relieve the economic burden of host communities.

Keywords: Informal entrepreneurship; Women entrepreneurs; Refugee entrepreneurship; Syrian refugees; Middle East (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-319-99064-4_15

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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-99064-4_15

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