ABSTRACT
Refugee social entrepreneurship has increasingly been framed as a solution to the labour integration of forcibly displaced populations, yet its implications reveal a complex intersection of economic opportunity and limited rights. In the Turkish context, where the refugee protection regime frequently bypasses formal rights, this article explores the potential of social enterprises such as Knit4Hope to foster livelihood. By positioning Knit4Hope within both neoliberal and decolonial frameworks, the study examines how refugee-led entrepreneurship navigates and redefines the “frontiers” of market-driven integration and rights limitations. This ethnographic analysis critiques the reliance on entrepreneurial self-sufficiency as a solution to restricted rights and protection, while foregrounding labour of solidarity and reimagined agency of Syrian women in urban Turkey. The article’s decolonial lens reconsiders integration not as a pathway to resilience but as a site of enduring negotiation of belonging and survival within an unequal global economy.
