ABSTRACT

We know relatively little about the everyday experiences of new migrant business owners, and how these businesses operate in practice. Self-employment is an important economic activity for new migrants. Its scale, dynamics and interactions need to be understood if appropriate policy interventions are to be devised to support them. This chapter explores the lived experience of migrant small business owners, and considers the dynamics of self-employment as an economic activity for migrants. Through close observation of the communicative practices of a migrant couple as they go about the everyday activity of running a small business we make visible the processes through which they find their voice as migrant entrepreneurs.