Abstract
One of the visible but often neglected outcomes of international migration in Asia is the emergence of immigrant-run businesses. Drawing on the experiences of Bangladeshi migrant entrepreneurs in Japan, this study examines how migrants reposition themselves from the rank of irregular workers to that of entrepreneurs under conditions of temporary migration. It highlights both the opportunity structure and the ingenuity of migrants in entrepreneurship. Unlike traditional migrant businesses, Bangladeshi migrant entrepreneurs engage in transactions in ethnic and non-ethnic products and are driven to adopt innovative strategies to make use of available technology in communication and transport and the globalization of markets. In doing so, they maintain multiple orientations in cultivating both the ethnic and local markets and developing a transnational and/or multinational dimension in growing their businesses.
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Notes
This migrant entrepreneur is actually a Rohingya Muslim from Myanmar. He migrated to Bangladesh and took up Bangladeshi citizenship and then moved to Saudi Arabia for work in early 1990s. Later, he migrated to Japan from Saudi Arabia. He married a Rohingya Muslim woman. It is important to note that many Rohingya Muslims go to Saudi Arabia for work via Bangladesh.
In addition to Bangladeshis, other South Asian groups like Pakistanis and Nepalese also migrated to Japan clandestinely for work in the 1980s.
http://www.bmet.org.bd/Reports/Flow_Migration.htm accessed on June 22, 2009
http://web-japan.org/stat/stats/16EDU61.html accessed on 14 November 2005
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Acknowledgement
This research was funded by the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, National University of Singapore. The authors would like to thank Rahman Moni from Porobas (Japan), Hisaya Oda from Ritsumeikan University, Mayumi Murayama from IDE-JETRO, Iguchi Yasushi from Kwansei Gakuin University, and Emiko Ochiai from Kyoto University for their support. Special thanks go to Kosuke Mizuno, CSEAS, Kyoto University, for invitation and local support during the fieldwork. The authors wish to thank the anonymous reviewers of JIMI for their insightful comments on the draft version of this article.
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Rahman, M.M., Lian, K.F. The Development of Migrant Entrepreneurship in Japan: Case of Bangladeshis. Int. Migration & Integration 12, 253–274 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12134-010-0158-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12134-010-0158-0