Migrant entrepreneurship, whether domestic or international, is a widely observed phenomenon. It is often seen as a pathway for migrants to achieve economic self-sufficiency and upward socioeconomic mobility, and it can also contribute to employment creation, trade, innovation, and wider social development in the host society. This Research Topic wishes to call attention to the intersection of migration and entrepreneurship in an increasingly uncertain time, a time of unprecedented risk for people’s economic well-being and social identity. In this context, migrant entrepreneurs may need to adapt to the fast-evolving world to seek economic opportunities and place attachment; their resources and migrant status may present unique advantages as well as challenges for their entrepreneurial pursuit at the same time.

The Research Topic welcomes contributions on the latest developments of migrant entrepreneurship research, which may address the various causes and/or consequences of migrant business formation across different geographic and cultural settings. In particular, we welcome research on how migrant entrepreneurship intersects with different dimensions of social inequality (e.g., gender, race, social class, state policies, etc.) and with the spatial hierarchy of developed vs. developing societies. Given the sensitivity of legality in migrant businesses, it would also be of great interest to learn how migrants of different citizenship/residence statuses navigate around the legal requirements for business formation and operation. We are also interested in studies on how migrant entrepreneurship has evolved in relatively newer settings, such as in return migration, migrants’ settlement in new destination areas, transnationalism and other cross-border settings.

Quite recently, the world has witnessed a rapid increase in the number of refugees and asylum seekers in various regions. In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic has amplified preexisting, as well as posed new, challenges to migrant businesses in their formation and sustenance. Examples of such challenges include the various forms of mobility restriction and social isolation that many migrants and their families have endured, the unequal support and relief measures provided by the governments, the slowdown in the global economy, and the rise of racism, xenophobia, and hate crimes. Meanwhile, the pandemic has also induced significant changes in people’s needs and behaviors (changes relating to, e.g., new modalities of work, study, and consumption; the intensification of the digital economy; and the use of new technologies), which may present new opportunities and tools for migrants to develop new entrepreneurial strategies and business models. Against this background, it would also be beneficial to learn how self-employment may facilitate the livelihoods of refugees and asylum seekers in their transit and destination countries, and how refugee entrepreneurship is received by the settled communities.

In sum, the Research Topic encourages authors to contribute to the scholarship of migrant entrepreneurship in broad ways, with a view to developing new understandings of, and theoretical perspectives on, the relationship between migration and entrepreneurship. Studies relating to both internal and international migrant entrepreneurship are equally welcomed, and comparative research across regions and over time are particularly encouraged. We welcome submissions of original research articles, conceptual analysis, and empirical methods focusing on one or more of (but not limited to) the following themes:

- Causes of migration business formation;
- Impact of migrant businesses on receiving communities;
- Impact of migrant businesses on sending communities;
- Gender, family, and migrant entrepreneurship;
- Return migration and entrepreneurship;
- Migrant entrepreneurship in new destination areas;
- Transnational or cross-border entrepreneurship;
- Impact of COVID-19 on migrant entrepreneurship;
- New modalities of migrant businesses;
- Migrants in informal economy;
- Refugee entrepreneurship;
- Comparative study of migrant entrepreneurship.

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Frontiers in Sociology

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