Paper short abstract:

My research casts a different light on the topic of entrepreneurship by analysing the experience of extremely mobile people who have developed efficient ways of bypassing the restrictive rules imposed by national border regimes in order to access new economic opportunities.

Paper long abstract:

The connection between entrepreneurship and mobility has been studied in a dichotomic way. On the one hand, a traditional perspective of migration prevails, with a focus on low-skilled, poor migrants launching businesses that build on their cultural capital as "exotic others" in order to circumvent economic and social exclusion. On the other hand, highly-skilled mobile entrepreneurs are glorified for transcending the borders of nation-states and developing cosmopolitan ways of life that free them from local attachments. This binary perspective, however, overshadows cases that correspond to none of these models. My research casts a different light on the topic of entrepreneurship by analysing two groups of extremely mobile people who have developed efficient ways of bypassing the restrictive rules imposed by national border regimes in order to access new economic opportunities. I study the mobility and business strategies of traders from Ecuador and Senegal who operate all over Europe, selling cheap goods imported from various locations during festivals, fairs, and touristic events. Although these "artists of the border" (Beck 2007) sometimes instrumentalise their status of otherness and exoticism to reach clients, they also adopt a very pragmatic approach to business and do not hesitate to exchange traditional handicraft for cheaper Asian products if it enables them to make new profit. In this sense, they have perfectly integrated the logics of the globalised economy, and although they operate in a grey area with respect to migration and trade regulations, they also know how to play with these rules.