Governing Ethnicized and Economized 'Migrant Subjects': 'Migrant Entrepreneurs' from Turkey in Vienna

Alev Çakir Ph.D. Student, Political Science, University of Vienna

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Abstract

'Migrant entrepreneurship' has attracted growing attention in public discussions and among scholars as well as policy-makers in Western Europe since the last decades since the image of the 'ideal' or 'good' migrant as 'ethnic entrepreneur' as one of the more welcomed and tolerated ethnicized and economized 'Others' has increasingly been promoted. With respect to Western Europe, in particular to Austria, migrants from Turkey are often conceptualized as the predominant ethnicized 'Other' and as the ‘problem migrant group’ producing ‘parallel societies’, associated with discourses circulating around migration, integration, citizenhsip, political participation, nationalism, racism, religion/Islamism, gender and 'modernity'/Orientalism as well as 'development/underdevelopment'. In this talk, Alev Çakir will give an overview of her doctoral work that analyzes the governing of 'migrant entrepreneurship', taking the example of türkiyeli (coming from Turkey) entrepreneurs, in Austria by both, policies and 'migrant entrepreneurs' themselves. She investigates issues on neoliberal economization and ethnicization of the 'migrant subject' by discussing the role of intersectional power relations and the political embeddedness of these processes.