Suriyeli Mültecilerin Esnaflaşmasını Anlamada Bourdieucu Yaklaşımın Olanakları

Abstract

his study shows that existing theoretical approaches in understanding migrant small-business ownership do not provide a composite, multi-layered framework. The dynamics of hardship faced by Syrian refugees and Syrian survival strategies are asserted to be unable to be fully understood through existing theoretical approaches. The existing literature on refugee-owned small businesses is discussed under three groupings: agency-oriented theories, structuralism, and the mixed approaches of embeddedness. This paper adopts a Bourdieusian approach to exploring the opportunities provided by Bourdieusian sociology in understanding the multi-layered dynamics of Syrian entrepreneurship. The main research questions of the paper are as follows: What are the possible opportunities in Bourdieu’s concepts for shedding light on Syrian small-business ownership? Does Bourdieusian field theory provide a composite, relational approach in understanding Syrian refugee small-business ownership? In so doing, the multi-layered and relational concepts of Bourdieusian sociology are operationalized in order to fill in the gaps within the existing literature on migrant/refugee entrepreneurship. This paper provides researchers with a toolkit for working on migrant/refugee smallbusiness ownership and contains five sections. The first section sets the aim and methodology of the study. The second section discusses the analytical models for understanding migrant entrepreneurship. The third section elaborates on the theoretical approaches that shed light on migrant entrepreneurship. These last two sections critically engage with these models and theoretical approaches by showing the gaps within them. The fourth section sets out the Bourdieusian approach and operationalizes his concepts into the research area of Syrian small-business ownership in Turkey. The paper concludes with key research findings and implications for researchers and practitioners.