A Study of Refugee Camp Entrepreneurship: Between Contingency and Necessity

Une étude de l’entrepreneuriat des camps de réfugiés, entre hasard et nécessité

Vincent Lagarde () and Crista Plak
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Vincent Lagarde: EHIC - Espaces Humains et Interactions Culturelles - IR SHS UNILIM - Institut Sciences de l'Homme et de la Société - UNILIM - Université de Limoges
Crista Plak: CREOP - Centre de Recherches sur l'Entreprise, les Organisations et le Patrimoine - GIO - Gouvernance des Institutions et des Organisations - UNILIM - Université de Limoges

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Abstract: A study of informal refugee entrepreneurship in Paris street camps tested the limits of conventional research methodologies. Fieldwork faced significant challenges: 4,000 undocumented migrants living in tents and cardboard shelters, exposed to cold, rain, illness, and violence. Access was controlled by smugglers and uncooperative NGOs; activities were hidden; photography was refused; testimonies were blocked by language barriers, fear, and prohibitions. Most critically, the camp was dismantled and its residents dispersed by police. To investigate, we developed an ad hoc methodology ‘epistemological bricolage' inspired by research in illicit environments and migrants' improvised practices. This approach had to be both academically rigorous and flexible: immersion as volunteers, covert observation, informal interviews framed as aid or commerce, sketching instead of photos, and triangulation with NGOs and experts. This analysis of an emerging camp economy aligns with limited existing literature on early encampment. It reveals innovative economic models shaped by entrepreneurial bricolage—frugal, mobile, and efficient—tailored to extreme precarity. These practices generated social and economic value, building bonds and empowering refugees. Dissemination of these findings proved difficult. Reviewers demanded requirements ill-suited to the context: written consent, or data from a camp that no longer existed. After several rejections, we followed academic contingencies—responding opportunistically to calls, leading us to the Arts and Humanities. This interdisciplinary turn allowed us to introduce the concept of a Failchest: a tool for reframing setbacks and embracing the generative potential of contingency in research. Finally, we ask whether the concept of serendipity is a relevant grid.

Keywords: Entrepreneuriat informel; Réfugiés; Migrants; Bricolage; Sérendipité (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-05-16
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Published in Place au(x) hasard(s) ! S’adapter et s’ouvrir à l’imprévu : quand la sérendipité rencontre les SHS, Analyse comparée des pouvoirs (ACP). Université Gustave Eiffel, May 2025, Champ sur Marne, France

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05073764

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