Disadvantaged Migrant Entrepreneurs and Their Selection of Location: Entrepreneurial Settlement and Making a “Home” Abroad

Economic migration and refugees have been in the epicentre of attention recently. Social and political debates discuss the length of their stay, possible return and integration policies, approaching migrants often as objects, not as individuals with agency and entrepreneurial endeavours regarding settlement. However, many migrants develop entrepreneurial strategies related to a particular place and accessible resources. These coping-location strategies without ethnic enclave pull have received little attention. In many smaller cities and villages, the role of such newcomers can be fundamental for the local economy counterbalancing migration to urban areas. This study presents location choice and particular location-relationships of disadvantaged migrants in a small town of Klagenfurt, Austria. Contrary to some expectations, their relationship to the new “home” is emotional, strong and permanent, and central to their entrepreneurship. We suggest that this type of disadvantaged migrant entrepreneurship with new local roots is a specific non-mobile category different from the ethnic enclave settlement.