Two facets of returnees’ entrepreneurship in Romania: Juxtaposing business owners and self-employed return migrants within a multi-method research framework

2021 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-194
Author(s):  
Alin Croitoru
Keyword(s):  
Return Migration ◽  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Business Owners ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Self Employment ◽  
Original Survey ◽  
And Migration ◽  
Depth Interviews ◽  
European Migration

This paper contributes to the growing literature on the diversity of return migration by analysing the different types of small-scale entrepreneurship among returnees. Data from an original survey conducted among Romanian returnees and in-depth interviews with returnees in entrepreneurship are combined to reveal distinct profiles of returnee entrepreneurs and to illustrate their specific ways of thinking about entrepreneurship and migration. Currently, Romania is one of the most fertile settings to research intra-European return migration due to its important flows of temporary international migrants. The paper highlights that there are major differences between business owners and self-employed returnees in terms of entrepreneurship. Returnees who are business owners are those who benefited significantly more from migration than non-entrepreneur returnees—in terms of economic savings, human capital accumulation, and enhancement of their stocks of social capital; while returnees in self-employment reveal no significant differences for these migration outcomes compared to non-entrepreneur returnees. The distinction between the two groups of entrepreneurs has certain implications for origin states’ policies oriented towards stimulating return migration through programmes oriented towards returnees’ entrepreneurship. Keywords: Return Migration; Intra-European Migration; Entrepreneurship; Self-Employment; Multi-Method Social Research. „„„„ Articolul contribuie la literatura dedicată diversității migrației de revenire prin analiza unor tipuri diferite de antreprenoriat în rândul migranților reîntorși în țara de origine. Pentru a documenta profilurile specifice ale migranților care sunt antreprenori după revenire, sunt combinate date culese printr-un sondaj cu migranți reveniți în România și interviuri de profunzime cu migranți care au statutul de antreprenori după revenirea din străinătate. În prezent, România reprezintă unul dintre contextele excelente pentru cercetarea migrației de revenire datorită fluxurilor importante de migranți temporari internaționali. Lucrarea subliniază o serie de diferențe majore între migranții reveniți care au deschis mici afaceri și cei care lucrează pe cont propriu (de exemplu, sub formă de persoană fizică autorizată). Pe de o parte, migranții reveniți care dețin mici afaceri sunt cei care au beneficiat semnificativ mai mult din experiența de migrație comparativ cu reveniții non-antreprenori, în termeni de bani economisiți din migrație, acumulare de capital uman în străinătate și reconfigurarea capitalului social. Pe de altă parte, compararea profilurilor celor care lucrează pe cont propriu cu non-antreprenorii nu arată diferențe semnificative între cele două categorii în termeni de resurse acumulate prin experiența de migrație. Distincția dintre cele două tipuri de antreprenori poate avea implicații pentru politicile statelor de origine orientate către stimularea migrației de revenire prin programe centrate spre antreprenoriatul migranților reveniți. Cuvinte-cheie: migrație de revenire; migrație intra-europeană; antreprenoriat; angajare pe cont propriu; cercetare multi-metodă.

Nesting self-employment in education, work and family trajectories of Romanian migrant returnees

2019 ◽  
Vol 67 (5) ◽  
pp. 778-797 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ionela Vlase ◽  
Alin Croitoru
Keyword(s):  
Entrepreneurial Orientation ◽  
Return Migration ◽  
Life Story ◽  
Work And Family ◽  
Life Goals ◽  
Cultural Aspects ◽  
Self Employment ◽  
Employment Trajectories ◽  
And Migration ◽  
Life Story Interviews

Challenging a biased view towards self-employed returnees as neoliberal selves, as the normalized approach of the migration–development nexus tends to depict them, this article builds an alternative conceptual framework to unpack the variegated experiences of migrant returnees’ self-employment trajectories in post-socialist Romania. The authors argue that the overemphasis on the benefits of return migration for origin countries through the skewed focus on the migrants’ accrual of human and financial capital and their ostensible entrepreneurial orientation has resulted in disregarding more influential biographical and cultural aspects. Life story interviews with middle-aged participants reveal the complex subjectivities that are co-produced by the habitus formed during communism – as children born and raised within working-class families – neoliberalism’s rise during the post-socialist transition, and migration, which altered the pursuit of their life goals. The article documents three distinct self-employment pathways among the interviewed return migrants, suggesting that the subjectivities of the self-employed are not uniformly confined to neoliberal self-understandings.

The Agrarian Question in Contemporary Zimbabwe

2019 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Toendepi Shonhe
Keyword(s):  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
Crop Production ◽  
Job Creation ◽  
Food Crop ◽  
Contract Farming ◽  
Agrarian Question ◽  
Food Crop Production ◽  
The Government ◽  
Agrarian Transition ◽  
Depth Interviews

The reinvestment of rural agrarian surplus is driving capital accumulation in Zimbabwe's countryside, providing a scope to foster national (re-) industrialisation and job creation. Contrary to Bernstein's view, the Agrarian Question on capital remains unresolved in Southern Africa. Even though export finance, accessed through contract farming, provides an impetus for export cash crop production, and the government-mediated command agriculture supports food crop production, the reinvestment of proceeds from the sale of agricultural commodities is now driving capital accumulation. Drawing from empirical data, gathered through surveys and in-depth interviews from Hwedza district and Mvurwi farming area in Mazowe district in Zimbabwe, the findings of this study revealed the pre-eminence of the Agrarian Question, linked to an ongoing agrarian transition in Zimbabwe. This agrarian capital elaborates rural-urban interconnections and economic development, following two decades of de-industrialisation in Zimbabwe. 

The Science and Art of Interviewing

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathleen Gerson ◽  
Sarah Damaske
Keyword(s):  
Social Research ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Research Process ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Science And Art ◽  
The Social ◽  
Interview Guide ◽  
Hidden Patterns ◽  
User Friendly ◽  
Depth Interviews

Qualitative interviewing is one of the most widely used methods in social research, but it is arguably the least well understood. To address that gap, this book offers a theoretically rigorous, empirically rich, and user-friendly set of strategies for conceiving and conducting interview-based research. Much more than a how-to manual, the book shows why depth interviewing is an indispensable method for discovering and explaining the social world—shedding light on the hidden patterns and dynamics that take place within institutions, social contexts, relationships, and individual experiences. It offers a step-by-step guide through every stage in the research process, from initially formulating a question to developing arguments and presenting the results. To do this, the book shows how to develop a research question, decide on and find an appropriate sample, construct an interview guide, conduct probing and theoretically focused interviews, and systematically analyze the complex material that depth interviews provide—all in the service of finding and presenting important new empirical discoveries and theoretical insights. The book also lays out the ever-present but rarely discussed challenges that interviewers routinely encounter and then presents grounded, thoughtful ways to respond to them. By addressing the most heated debates about the scientific status of qualitative methods, the book demonstrates how depth interviewing makes unique and essential contributions to the research enterprise. With an emphasis on the integral relationship between carefully crafted research and theory building, the book offers a compelling vision for what the “interviewing imagination” can and should be.

scholarly journals Contested borders: organized crime, governance, and bordering practices in Colombia-Venezuela borderlands

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Viviana García Pinzón ◽  
Jorge Mantilla
Keyword(s):  
Organized Crime ◽  
Border Studies ◽  
Transnational Organized Crime ◽  
Spatial Category ◽  
Criminal Organizations ◽  
The Common ◽  
Migration Flows ◽  
And Migration ◽  
Social Orders ◽  
Depth Interviews

Abstract Based on the conceptualizations of organized crime as both an enterprise and a form of governance, borderland as a spatial category, and borders as institutions, this paper looks at the politics of bordering practices by organized crime in the Colombian-Venezuelan borderlands. It posits that contrary to the common assumptions about transnational organized crime, criminal organizations not only blur or erode the border but rather enforce it to their own benefit. In doing so, these groups set norms to regulate socio-spatial practices, informal and illegal economies, and migration flows, creating overlapping social orders and, lastly, (re)shaping the borderland. Theoretically, the analysis brings together insights from political geography, border studies, and organized crime literature, while empirically, it draws on direct observation, criminal justice data, and in-depth interviews.

The State Policy towards the Homeless in Moldova between the ‘Left Hand’ and the ‘Right Hand’. The Case of Chișinău Shelter

Südosteuropa ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 67 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-195
Author(s):  
Petru Negură
Keyword(s):  
Homeless People ◽  
Severe Disabilities ◽  
The State ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Left Hand ◽  
Right Hand ◽  
Binary Approach ◽  
The One ◽  
The Right ◽  
Depth Interviews

Abstract The Centre for the Homeless in Chișinău embodies on a small scale the recent evolution of state policies towards the homeless in Moldova (a post-Soviet state). This institution applies the binary approach of the state, namely the ‘left hand’ and the ‘right hand’, towards marginalised people. On the one hand, the institution provides accommodation, food, and primary social, legal assistance and medical care. On the other hand, the Shelter personnel impose a series of disciplinary constraints over the users. The Shelter also operates a differentiation of the users according to two categories: the ‘recoverable’ and those deemed ‘irrecoverable’ (persons with severe disabilities, people with addictions). The personnel representing the ‘left hand’ (or ‘soft-line’) regularly negotiate with the employees representing the ‘right hand’ (‘hard-line’) of the institution to promote a milder and a more humanistic approach towards the users. This article relies on multi-method research including descriptive statistical analysis with biographical records of 810 subjects, a thematic analysis of in-depth interviews with homeless people (N = 65), people at risk of homelessness (N = 5), professionals (N = 20) and one ethnography of the Shelter.

The New Chinese Community in New Zealand: Local Outcomes of Transnationalism

2001 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 213-240 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manying Ip Wardlow Friesen
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Return Migration ◽  
Host Society ◽  
Chinese Community ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
Economic Motivation ◽  
Economic Miracle ◽  
Chinese Migrants ◽  
Depth Interviews

The new Chinese community in New Zealand (formed since 1987) is made up of immigrants from the People's Republic of China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Malaysia as well as other countries. Initially looked upon as harbingers of the “Asian economic miracle” by the New Zealand government, the new arrivals met with numerous unforeseen difficulties. This article is based on the findings of surveys and in-depth interviews in which the primary migrants were asked about their motives for migration, the economic and social outcomes of their migration, their perception of the comparative strengths of their native land and New Zealand, and their long-term view on settlement and return migration. The surveys are also set against background statistics from the 1996 census as well as immigration figures up to 2000. The findings challenge the assumption of the importance of the economic motivation of migration, and point to the primacy of social and environmental factors. They also suggest that transnationalism is a long-term strategy, instead of a temporary expediency, but also that most Chinese migrants in New Zealand have tried to integrate with the host society when possible.

The “laborless fuel”: Landscape, energy transitions and natural gas in the postwar U.S.

2021 ◽  
pp. 251484862098712
Author(s):  
Carlo Sica
Keyword(s):  
Natural Gas ◽  
Social Reproduction ◽  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
Energy Transition ◽  
Business Owners ◽  
Energy Landscapes ◽  
Technological Systems ◽  
Energy Transitions ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Landscapes

The dire need for an energy transition to mitigate and reverse global warming is inspiring scholars to reexamine political influences on technological systems. The multi-level perspective of the socio-technical transitions framework acknowledges how technological systems are affected by the social and political landscapes where they are built. Energy landscapes literatures elaborate on the socio-technical transitions framework by explaining how the boundaries of landscapes are negotiated in the context of energy transitions. Energy scholars have found that negotiations over the form and purpose of energy landscapes frequently skew in favor of capital accumulation instead of social reproduction. Studies of landscapes in human geography and labor history have shown how the power imbalance energy scholars observed can be corrected by workers and their communities struggling against business owners and the state. Using archival data, I show how U.S. natural gas legislation in the postwar period was intended to limit coalminers’ demands for landscapes of social reproduction. This point matters because the vulnerabilities of industrial capitalism to energy worker organization could be exploited to push for a just and sustainable energy transition like the Green New Deal.

BEYOND THE TOURIST EXPERIENCE: ANALYZING THE IMAGINATION OF PLACE AND TRAVEL IN EVERYDAY LIFE

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Identity Work ◽  
The Self ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Individual State ◽  
Imaginary World ◽  
Tourism Research ◽  
State Of Mind ◽  
Depth Interviews

This article advocates a new agenda for (media) tourism research that links questions of tourist experiences to the role and meaning of imagination in everyday life. Based on a small-scale, qualitative study among a group of seventeen respondents of diverse ages and backgrounds currently residing in the Netherlands, we offer an empirical exploration of the places that are of importance for people’s individual state of mind and investigate how these places relate to (potential) tourist experiences. The combination of in-depth interviews and random-cue self-reporting resulted in the following findings: 1) all our respondents regularly reside in an elaborate imaginary world, consisting of both fictional and non-fictional places; 2) this imaginary world is dominated by places which make the respondents feel nostalgic; 3) in this regard, the private home and houses from childhood are pivotal; 4) the ‘home’ is seen as topos of the self and contrasted with ‘away’; 5) the imagination of ‘away’ emerges from memories of previous tourist experiences, personal fantasies and, last but not least, influences from popular culture. We conclude that imagining and visiting other locations are part of a life-long project of ‘identity work’ in which personal identities are performed, confirmed and extended. By travelling, either physically or mentally, individuals anchor their identity - the entirety of ideas about who they are, where they come from and where they think they belong - in a broader, spatial framework.

How Voters Respond to Currency Crises: Evidence From Turkey

2021 ◽  
pp. 001041402110602
Author(s):  
David A. Steinberg
Keyword(s):  
International Trade ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Survey Data ◽  
Currency Crises ◽  
Political Attitudes ◽  
Economic Situation ◽  
Financial Shocks ◽  
The Government ◽  
Original Survey ◽  
And Migration

A burgeoning literature shows that international trade and migration shocks influence individuals’ political attitudes, but relatively little is known about how international financial shocks impact public opinion. This study examines how one prevalent type of international financial shock—currency crises—shapes mass political attitudes. I argue that currency crises reduce average citizens’ support for incumbent governments. I also expect voters’ concerns about their own pocketbooks to influence their response to currency crises. Original survey data from Turkey support these arguments. Exploiting exogenous variation in the currency’s value during the survey window, I show that currency depreciations strongly reduce support for the government. This effect is stronger among individuals that are more negatively affected by depreciation, and it is moderated by individuals’ perceptions of their personal economic situation. This evidence suggests that international financial shocks can strongly influence the opinions of average voters, and it provides further support for pocketbook theories.

Subcontracting, growth and capital accumulation in small‐scale firms in the textile industry in Turkey

1991 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 130-149 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gunar Evcimen ◽  
Mehmet Kaytaz ◽  
E. Miné Cinar
Keyword(s):  
Textile Industry ◽  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
Small Scale
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