Migrants’ Collective Attempts to Counter Economic Exclusion

Many migrants struggle to find work according to their skills and aspirations in Switzerland. They are forced to downsize, postpone, or completely redirect their professional ambitions. In recent years, however, migrants have started to collectively seek to improve their situations and challenge these exclusionary logics through various initiatives. Migrant-run organizations are, for example, offering support to those who want to create their own businesses. Yet, what are their potential and limits?

Switzerland is one of the top-ranking OECD countries when it comes to the participation of migrants in the labor market. Yet as research shows, especially women and non-Europeans who do not come to the country with an existing employment contract, but through family reunification or asylum, often struggle to find work according to their skills and aspirations (Riaño 2021). This is partly due to a lack of recognition of their qualifications, discriminatory hiring practices, as well as state-run integration programs, which fail to properly address these issues. Instead, these programs channel migrants into precarious labor sectors (Stingl 2021).

Migrants do not always remain passive in these situations. Increasingly, they call for a recognition of their economic potential and take action in supporting each other to overcome labor market barriers. Among such initiatives, migrant-run organizations offer entrepreneurship programs and provide training to migrants who aim to create their own businesses. Until now, we have only had a very limited understanding of the effects of these programs. What is the reality behind the promise of such entrepreneurial careers for migrants? And more generally, what are the potential and limits of these collective efforts to challenge economic exclusion?

The Entrepreneurial Dream and its Limits

After participating in entrepreneurial programs, many migrants become self-employed in diverse fields, such as IT, education, gastronomy, or retail. They receive coaching on business creation and marketing practices in Switzerland, access to local professional networks and encouragement to creatively use their former professional experiences. Thereby, they overcome the frustration of being rejected from more regular jobs and develop self-confidence regarding their resources and skills.

However, not all participants succeed in launching a business that provides economic self-sufficiency. This results partly from specific legal restrictions on self-employment for third-country nationals. Entrepreneurship involves taking risks, which requires financial stability and the support of a broader social network in place. These are conditions that cannot always be met when arriving in a new country (Piguet 2010). Hence, the gap between some participants’ newly forged professional expectations and their realities may turn into new sources of disappointment.

Moreover, the promotion of self-employment among migrants aligns with neoliberal and individualistic logics. Rather than challenging the policies and hiring practices that excluded migrants from meaningful labor market participation in the first place, it encourages migrants to take initiative and overcome barriers themselves. By urging migrants´ self-responsibility for their professional trajectory and economic integration, migrant-run organizations run the risk of maintaining the system, rather than challenging it (Martin 2011).

Showcasing Migratory Potential to the Public

While the focus is clearly on migrants´ individual initiatives, these organizations also try to include other actors and foster dialogue with the society at large. They create alliances with established companies, which then provide further training opportunities or even funding for their participants. These organizations also motivate local professionals to give advice and to become mentors for future migrant entrepreneurs. Thereby, they complicate the notion of mere self-responsibility and one-sided integration, and move toward a more progressive view of an inclusive economy that multiple actors contribute to.

These organizations regularly host events during which the entrepreneurial projects of participants are presented to the public. By showcasing migrants’ potential contributions, they aim to oppose deficit-oriented views that frame migrants as burdens to the Swiss society and the welfare state. The portrayal of migrants as resourceful individuals thus challenges patronizing discourses that show migrants as vulnerable figures in need of support. This public appearance certainly has the potential to change society´s perception of migrants and to equalize access to professional opportunities. Yet, it is also necessary to have a critical view of the strategy of “showcasing” migrants’ economic potential. There is a risk of reinforcing utilitarian and instrumental narratives of migration and reproducing the established divide between migrants and non-migrants, whereby migrants are required to advertise their skills to society to be considered “welcome.”

 Creating a Sense of Community Despite Constraints

At this point, however, we need to acknowledge the limited possibilities of individuals who manage and work for such initiatives. Most of them do not have long-term experience in running non-profit organizations, or entrepreneurial programs and face difficulties in securing funding for their organizations. They must recurrently approach private and corporate sources as well as apply for the integration schemes of cantons and cities. The state does not provide sustainable support to entrepreneurial programs for migrants yet. This results in short-time funding, poor salaries, and a lot of volunteer time. Their efforts can be read as a circumvention strategy that aims to improve the living conditions of migrants, while still navigating the organizations’ own constraints.

Despite the above-described ambivalences, these initiatives still have a great impact on the everyday lives of their participants. The initiatives reappraise migrants’ skills and resources, and facilitate their professional ascension beyond precarious sectors. The interactions within migrant-run organizations thus provide relief from everyday struggles and counterbalance the prevailing experiences of loneliness after arriving in Switzerland. Many participants feel a sense of belonging and refer to these organizations as communities. Through these organizations, migrants feel less alone and can build meaningful relationships. The effects of such initiatives seem to go beyond the mere economic sphere, as they also address migrants’ multiple other needs outside the labor market.

Christina Mittmasser is a PhD fellow at the Institute of Geography of the University of Neuchâtel.  She is part of the nccr – on the move project “Migrant Entrepreneurship: Mapping Cross-Border Mobilities and Exploring the Role of Spatial Mobility Capital”.

The blog post is based on an article she has written together with Isabella Stingl from the University of Zürich. The article has been published 2021 in the “Revue européenne des migrations internationales, 37 (1–2) (pre-print available online).

References:

– Martin N. (2011). Toward a new countermovement: A framework for interpreting the contradictory interventions of migrant civil society organizations in urban labor markets, Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space 43(12), 2934–2952.
– Piguet E. (2010). Entrepreneurship among immigrants in Switzerland. In: OECD (ed.) Open for Business. Migrant Entrepreneurship in OECD Countries. OECD Publishing, 149–175.
– Riaño Y. (2021). Understanding brain waste: Unequal opportunities for skills development between highly skilled women and men, migrants and nonmigrants, Population, Space and Place 27(5), e2456.
– Stingl I. (2021). Die Zeit als Gegenstand und Mittel des Regierens: Praktiken der Integrationsförderung im Kontext Arbeit und Migration. Practices of integration in the context of labour and migration, Geographische Zeitschrift 109(1), 44.