Empowerment through enterprise: Balkan migrants and the narrative of entrepreneurial identity

This paper explores how Balkan migrants, operating small gastronomy businesses in Vienna, construct their identity as migrant entrepreneurs. Drawing on the concept of narrative identity and using qualitative interviews, the analysis investigates how narrative resources – such as a transformation plot, the development of agency as self-empowerment, and positioning within dominant societal discourses – are employed to construct identity. The empirical findings reveal a specific narrative pattern that characterizes the identity construction of migrant entrepreneurs. This pattern blends entrepreneurial themes of hard work and autonomy with migrant experiences of vulnerability and engagement with migration discourses in the host society. By focusing on narratives of self-empowerment, the study shows how narrators strategically utilize discursive resources to render their stories intelligible and legitimate within broader societal frameworks. Entrepreneurship emerges as a means of reclaiming agency and achieving recognition, which in turn suggests that institutional practices should value initiative and autonomy rather than emphasizing needs.