Challenging orthodoxies

Cypriot entrepreneurs in the London garment industry

Bibliographic Data

ID3655907
AuthorsProdromos Panayiotopoulos (Centre For Development Studies, corresponding author), Prodromos I Panayiotopoulos
Year1996
Volume22
Issue3
Pages437-460
Publication date1996-07-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueNew Community (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0047-9586 • E-ISSN: 1469-9451
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/1369183x.1996.9976549
OpenAlexW2042500451
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited39

The issues of minority enterprise and the ‘enclave economy’ have been subjected to an on‐going and vigorous debate on both sides of the Atlantic. This article traces the evolution of some of the concepts applied in the analyses of minorities and their economic activities. Evidence is offered from a study of Cypriot entrepreneurs in the ethnically highly heterogeneous London garment industry. It is argued that this sectoral focus may be of more significance in defining economic activity than any particular characteristic associated with ethnic identity. It is also argued that the conceptualisation of ethnic capital as either a collective ‘survival‐mechanism’ in the face of disadvantage or as an ‘effective vehicle’ for the upward mobility of an ethnic group, may result in the adoption of a community compliance model and an insensitivity to tensions inside ethnic communities. An alternative approach is presented which investigates processes of economic and social differentiation in the relationship between the London garment industry and the positioning and re‐positioning of an immigrant group

Aesthetics · Collective identity · Disadvantage · Economic geography · Economics · Ethnic group · Immigration · Political science · Social capital · Social science · Sociology · Anthropology · Diaspora, migration, transnational identity · History · Law · Migration and Labor Dynamics · Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy