Refugee economic self-reliance practices

How institutional intermediations negotiate opportunities for refugee employment and entrepreneurship

Bibliographic Data

ID8941920
AuthorsAurélie Toivonen (0000-0002-0679-2681, Tampere University, corresponding author)
Year2023
Volume140
Pages103700-103700
Publication date2023-02-22
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueGeoforum (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0016-7185 • E-ISSN: 1872-9398
PublisherElsevier BV (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1016/j.geoforum.2023.103700
OpenAlexW4321485617
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited54

This research explores how institutional intermediations negotiate local institutional frameworks that constrain refugee (self-)employment. Drawing on the case of a Finnish non-profit organization, the findings show the construction of a labor market scaffolding, which is an analytical space wherein refugees’ institutional disadvantages are negotiated through three intermediation mechanisms: mobilizing network support, bridging the employability gap, and buffering regulatory constraints. This research contributes to scholarship on refugee workforce integration by elaborating on a comprehensive process that targets the individual, networks, and regulations to address the systemic and multilevel challenges of refugee employment. The paper also contributes to refugee governance mechanisms by suggesting that labor market scaffoldings can be productive tools for devising refugees’ self-reliance practices that are relational, temporally sensitive, and contextually relevant

Business · Corporate governance · Economic growth · Economics · Employability · Entrepreneurship · Negotiation · Political science · Public relations · Refugee · Scholarship · Sociology · Employment and Welfare Studies · Migration and Labor Dynamics · Migration, Health and Trauma

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