The mixed embeddedness of ethnic tourist-based entrepreneurship: An exploratory study in Rosengård, Malmö, Sweden

Abstract: This thesis reconnoiters the involvement of immigrants as owners, producers and organizers of multiethnic business ventures that appeal outside visitors, so called ethnic tourist-based entrepreneurship. The study is informed by the principles underlying an interpretive case study conducted in Rosengård, Malmö, and the data were collected through semi-structured interviews complemented by participant observation and serendipitous informal discussions. The findings show that ethnic communities in Rosengård lack the skills, knowledge, capital and wide outside network base required to exploit the opportunity structure for the ethnic tourist business. As a result, the tourist-based multiethnic ventures are formed with the involvement of enthusiastic native social and cultural entrepreneurs, who aspired to reorient the local economy. With their small and innovative ethnic businesses, both immigrant and mainstream entrepreneurs are carving their own niches in the market for cultural diversity. An inherent aspect of this entrepreneurial occurrence is the objectified commodification of ethnicity and its multiple manifestations, and their transformation into economic value. Using the mixed embeddedness conceptual framework, the study also found out that a myriad of social, economic and politico-institutional factors tremendously influence this emerging entrepreneurial phenomenon, and the overall economic manifestation of ethnic communities.