Organizational Mediation of Immigrant Integration: Transnational Entrepreneurship and Integration with Difference

• In Event: 549 - Section on International Migration Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 12. Mobility and Integration

Abstract

Understanding how immigrants integrate into their host society has been a key focus in migration studies. I examine the incorporation of immigrants by the mainstream society into the economy in the context of a Rustbelt City, United States - a refugee resettlement city with an economy that is seeking to regain its vitality after deindustrialization. One location, the International Market, is a non-profit small business incubator and workplace of immigrants run by a mainstream business development support organization. Drawing on qualitative data from a year-long observation and interviews with vendors and managers of the Market, I argue that the Market functions as an organizational mediator of social and economic integration of immigrants, where immigrants become economically successful members of the host society, on the condition that they keep their transnational ties and remain culturally different from the mainstream. I demonstrate that economic integration through organizational mediation entails cultural limits alongside economic opportunities. This study contributes to the literature on immigrant integration by pointing out how mainstream community organizations mediate integration as an unintended consequence of their other primary activities such as business development.

Author

• Aysegul Balta Ozgen, SUNY at Buffalo