Transnational Embeddedness of Nigerian Immigrant Entrepreneurship in Ghana, West Africa

Abstract

Transnationalism has provided an important optic for understanding immigrant entrepreneurship in the past three decades. However, the existing discourse often neglects Africa as a context for the articulation of immigrant entrepreneurship. Leaning on the constructivist epistemology with empirical base anchored in in-depth interviews and observational data, I explore the transnational contours and practices of Nigerian immigrants in Ghana and their entrepreneurial articulation in the country. First, I show how these immigrant entrepreneurs are embedded in multiple layers of transnationalism, namely one-way, two-way, and tripartite transnationalism. Secondly, I demonstrate the ways these entrepreneurial activities are embedded in Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) through the transnational economic opportunity structures it has created and are being exploited by the immigrants and the range of institutions, practices, and services that have emerged because of the existence of ECOWAS itself. A third dimension of transnationalism in the operation of Nigerian immigrant entrepreneurship in Ghana relates to labor recruitment through the traditional apprenticeship system, which, grounded in intersubjective field, crisscross the home and host communities. From these findings, I conclude by positioning the immigrants and their entrepreneurial processes as transnationally embedded.