Gurkha Warriors as Entrepreneurs in Britain: A Social Anchoring Lens on Martial Heritage and Migrant Enterprises

Adhikari, Pawan, Dhakal Adhikari, Shovita, Arun, Shoba ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2950-3157 and Arun, Thankom (2023) Gurkha Warriors as Entrepreneurs in Britain: A Social Anchoring Lens on Martial Heritage and Migrant Enterprises. Work, Employment and Society, 37 (5). pp. 1359-1376. ISSN 0950-0170

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Abstract

Using the social anchoring approach, this article investigates the entrepreneur experience of one of the newest migrant groups in Britain, the Nepali Gurkhas. The findings derived from the semi-structured interviews show how these migrant entrepreneurs employ multiple ‘anchors’ to engage in family-based enterprises and to navigate structural constraints. Their military heritage, which has provided them with psycho-social resources in the form of subjective and mixed anchors, has been central to their exercise of agency and enabling them to gain a foothold in Britain. This has rendered Gurkha entrepreneurs a distinct group within migrant entrepreneurship. The article contributes to the literature on migrant entrepreneurship by delineating how agential capacity, by deploying different anchors, can cause variations in migrant enterprises, which in turn imbue migrant entrepreneurship with distinct characteristics.