Jan Rath

Mixed Embeddedness: (In)formal Economic Activities and Immigrant Businesses in the Netherlands

Immigrants from non-industrialized countries have become part and parcel of the social fabric of many advanced urban economies, including those in the Netherlands. A significant number of these migrants opt for setting up shop themselves. Lacking access to large financial resources and mostly lacking in educational qualifications, they are funnelled towards the lower end of the opportunity structure of these urban economies. To survive in these cut-throat markets, many migrant entrepreneurs revert to informal economic activities that are strongly dependent on specific social networks - mostly consisting of co-ethnics - to sustain these activities on a more permanent basis. To understand the social position of these migrant entrepreneurs and their chances of upward social mobility, one has to look beyond these co-ethnic networks and focus on their insertion in the wider society in terms of customers, suppliers and various kinds of business organizations. To deal with this latter type of insertion, we propose the use of a more comprehensive concept of mixed embeddedness that aims at incorporating both the co-ethnic social networks as well as the linkages (or lack of linkages) between migrant entrepreneurs and the economic and institutional context of the host society. We illustrate this concept by presenting a case study of Islamic butchers in the Netherlands. Copyright Joint Editors and Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1999.

A quintessential immigrant niche? The non-case of immigrants in the Dutch construction industry

Students of immigrant entrepreneurship show a distinct preference for ethnic concentrations. They focus on small entrepreneurship in sectors with large concentrations of immigrant businesses or on ethnic commercial precincts. This preference stems from practical and theoretical considerations. It seems that the study of such concentrations, or niches, is essential to the theoretical understanding of the structural determinants of small entrepreneurship and the processes of economic incorporation of immigrants. This paper challenges this orthodoxy. It argues that it is important to assess the factors and processes that positively and negatively affect the formation of niches. This argument is corroborated by an analysis of the construction industry in the Netherlands. According to Waldinger (1995: 577), ‘construction represents the quintessential ethnic niche’, but immigrants in the Netherlands did not carve out a niche. This exceptional situation can be attributed to a sector-specific configuration of social, economic and institutional processes.

Ethnic Leadership, ethnic communities’ political powerlessness and the state in Belgium

Abstract The article examines the relations between the Belgian state and political system on the one hand, and the ethnic communities of immigrant origin living in the country, on the other. It is argued that the political powerless‐ness of the ethnic collectivities has been reproduced by the Belgian state and polity: ethnic leaders have been neutralized in consultative politics, and ethnic elites have been promoted on the individual level. The case study presents the paradoxical position of the Italian community which is better off socially and economically than more recent immigrant groups like Moroccans and Turks but still absent as a group on the political scene in Belgium. The political exclusion of immigrant groups as such is analysed as a survival strategy by a state which feels subjectively threatened by the potential emergence of a new ethnicity related to immigrant population in the political life.

Urban markets and diversity: towards a research agenda

In this paper we advocate the study of local street markets to explore fundamental issues about the relationship between economy and society. This relationship evolves over time and we believe that it has been recast in an age of increasing cultural diversity and neo-liberal state regulatory structures. In street markets we can see how diversity and the nature of economic transactions become mutually constitutive. We argue that cultural diversity propels local markets, while everyday interactions in markets influence intercultural relationships. These complex processes are affected by the spatiality of markets and the regulatory environments within which they operate. We conclude by framing a research programme on street markets and discuss a number of methodological complications that would need to be addressed in this endeavour.

Promoting ethnic entrepreneurship in European cities

European cities are increasingly faced with the challenge of integrating people from very diverse backgrounds. As migrant populations increase, so do the opportunities for new business, job creation and international competitiveness. This report shows that ethnic entrepreneurs, however small their venture, contribute to the economic growth of their local area, often rejuvenate neglected crafts and trades, and participate increasingly in the provision of higher value-added services. They can help to promote stronger trading links with their home countries and foster social cohesion in their host communities. The report examines what city authorities are doing to attract ethnic entrepreneurs into their established business communities, and to facilitate the business environment - from the purely financial to providing training and advice.

Coffee people in Tehran, Glasgow and Amsterdam:

Despite the diversity of consumption and class practices of the new urban middle classes within and between societies, they share some qualities. Focusing on the lifestyles and mentalities of regulars of specialty coffee bars in Tehran, Glasgow and Amsterdam, this study explores common characteristics of this group. Our ethnography suggests that through their everyday consumption practices, coffee people share a set of ethical dispositions and cultural practices among which this article focuses on the metropolitan body, cosmopolitanism and environmentalism.

Chinatown 2.0: the difficult flowering of an ethnically themed shopping area

ABSTRACT Right in Amsterdam’s picturesque Canal Zone, on and around Zeedijk, Chinese entrepreneurs have carved out a presence in what seems like the local Chinatown. The businessmen have been targeting Asian and non-Asian customers by offering products that – to an extent – can be associated with Asia, China in particular. Since the early 1990s, individual entrepreneurs and their business organisations have campaigned for official acknowledgement of Zeedijk as an ethnic-only district and for governmental support of the enhancement of Chineseness. Following Hackworth and Rekers. [(2005). “Ethnic Packaging and Gentrification. The Case of Four Neighborhoods in Toronto.” Urban Affairs Review 41 (2): 211–236], we argue that this case challenges traditional understandings of ethnic commercial landscapes. In sharp contrast to the current orthodoxy, which would conceive the proliferation of such an ‘ethnic enclave’ as part of a larger process of assimilation, we have approached Amsterdam’s Chinatown first and foremost as a themed economic space: Chinese and other entrepreneurs compete for a share of the market and in doing also for the right to claim the identity of the area. What is the historical development of the Zeedijk area, how did Chinese entrepreneurs and their associations try to boost Chinatown and negotiate public Chineseness, and how did governmental and non-governmental institutional actors respond to those attempts?

Der Islam in den Niederlanden: Zur Bedeutung islamischer Institutionen in einer entsäulten Gesellschaft

In den Niederlanden ist der Islam eine schnell wachsende Religion. Obwohl dieses Wachstum erst seit kurzem in Erscheinung tritt, sind der Islam und die, die sich zu ihm bekennen in der niederlandischen Gesellschaft keineswegs unbekannt. Schon vor Jahrhunderten lernten die Niederlande als Handelsnation und Kolonialmacht den Islam kennen. Vor dem zweiten Weltkrieg hielten sich einige indonesische Studenten kurzzeitig im kolonialen Mutterland auf. Wahrend der funfziger Jahre liesen sich hier eine kleine Zahl von islamischen Molukken und „indischen“ Suriname nieder. Die Anzahl Muslime stieg erst nach 1965 stark an, vor allem mit dem Zuzug von auslandischen Arbeitern und deren Familienangehorigen aus Nordafrika und aus der Turkei. 1971 betrug die geschatzte Zahl Muslime noch um die 50.000 wahrend es 1975 zirka 100.000 waren und 1994 fast 628.000. Innerhalb einiger Jahrzehnte ist der Islam diesen Schatzungen zufolge die groste nichtchristliche Religion in den Niederlanden geworden. Das klingt ubrigens spektakularer als es ist: in Wirklichkeit geht es hier um weniger als vier Prozent der niederlandischen Gesamtbevolkerung, wobei nichtglaubige Muslime und sogar Nicht-Muslime aus „islamischen Landern“ mitgerechnet sind.2