Entrepreneurship under extreme constraints: Evidence of micro-bricolage from Rohingya refugee camps

Abstract

Through rare, independent access to the Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh we conducted an in-depth survey to examine how marginalized actors create and maintain their business activities in a highly restrictive environment. In so doing, we extend conventional notions of bricolage to the specificities of what we define as noncooperative spaces. Moreover, we offer a new theoretical lens of micro-bricolage as a more suitable approach to capture and represent highly vulnerable actors. By incorporating contextual sensitivities in this approach, we reveal a variety of counterintuitive insights regarding the role of (financial) capital, transgression against institutions, and social networks. Specifically, we find that conventional factors such as start-up capital, access to debt, possession of prior business experiences and internal social ties – which are deemed vital in conventional entrepreneurship or bricolage studies – are less relevant to socioeconomic development in refugee camps. In contrast, we identify that actors’ intangible resource specialization, abilities to transgress against formal restrictive institutions, and mobilization of strong external ties are more important factors. Accordingly, we argue for a fundamental shift in the way we perceive inhabitants of noncooperative spaces and recommend new ways of integrating vulnerable actors such as refugees and their spaces in wider societies.

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ORCID for Rashedur Chowdhury: orcid.org/0000-0002-5118-8344

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