From Rags to Restaurants: Self-Determination, Entrepreneurship and Integration amongst Muslim Immigrants in Newcastle upon Tyne in Comparative Perspective, 1960s-1990s

Abstract

This article will provide a long-term assessment of Britain’s relatively liberal (albeit constrained after 1962) immigration policy through an investigation of ethnic minority self-employment in Newcastle upon Tyne. It will offer an examination of immigrant experiences at grassroots level with regards to the employment sector and a reassessment of ethnic minority integration situated within a Western context. It will trace the development of entrepreneurship amongst Newcastle’s Muslim immigrant community from its arrival in Britain through to its emergence as a fixed attribute on the city’s landscape. A comparison with the German city of Bremen helps expose the long-term legacies of immigration histories and policies, and the role that Islam plays in determining levels of ethnic entrepreneurship. By drawing upon government documents and correspondence, Census material and a wide array of secondary literature, this article asserts that the literature focusing on immigrant aspirations and self-determination in the British labour market during the post-Second World War period needs revising.