ABSTRACT

This chapter presents an overview of contemporary immigrant and ethnic entrepreneurship within the field of migration studies. After reviewing four classic conceptualizations of immigrant and ethnic entrepreneurship (middle man minorities, ethnic economics, ethnic entrepreneurial niches and ethnic enclave economies), the chapter reviews research on the benefits of entrepreneurship and ways in which entrepreneurship interacts with processes of assimilation and immigrant incorporation. This is followed by a discussion of the ‘racialized incorporation’ perspective of immigrant entrepreneurship, which argues that immigrants and their second-generation children are sorted into socially constructed racial categories that are associated with uneven propensities for self-employment and industry-sector prestige. The chapter closes with a discussion of recent developments including: the ‘mixed embeddedness’ approach to comparative immigrant entrepreneurship research, transnational entrepreneurs, and corporate franchising as a new model of immigrant entrepreneurship.