The issues of immigrant entrepreneurship

This article reviews the major findings of the scholarship on immigrant economies and critically analyses the use of the notion of ethnicity therein. It first presents the context and the opportunities of entrepreneurs (micro-and macro-context, support policies, transnationalism, informal economies), before describing the resources mobilized by businesspeople. These include, in particular, networks and ethnic/social capital, whose relationships with factors such as class, gender, culture, and social mobility are investigated. The article concludes by questioning the very notion of ethnic economies, arguing that it may lead to an over-ethnicisation of business practices within immigrant groups.