Mixing Ethnic and Non-ethnic Economic Strategies: Migrant Entrepreneurs in Zagreb

Abstract

The article analyses small and medium scale entrepreneurial activities of foreign nationals in Zagreb, the Croatian capital. Migrants’ businesses in the hospitality sector are analysed against the background of opportunities and constraints offered by the specific local and national context, and in relation to the city’s attempts to reposition itself within international networks of power. The authors argue that the city’s ambiguous position – of a national metropolis which lacks relative power internationally and attempts to reposition itself by developing tourism industry – has positive effects on migrants’ emplacement. It offers them an opportunity to fill in empty economic niches in the hospitality sector and partake of the current tourist boom and heightened demand for diversity. The article argues that the local context, which lacks international diversity and ethnic markets, does not lead to the creation of “ethnic businesses”. By their targeted clientele, workforce, social networking, location in the city centre and visions for business expansion migrant businesses employ mixed, ethnic and non-ethnic, economic strategies of emplacement. The article thus underlines the importance of the local embeddedness for migrants’ emplacement, whose constituent part are efforts made by the city at its international rescaling.