From Entrepreneurship to Social Activist: The Role of Indonesian Migrant Entrepreneurs in Taiwan and Socio- Economic Functions of Return-Migrant Entrepreneurship in Malang, East Java

Abstract

In the case of Taiwan, Indonesian migrant entrepreneurs’ active in social activities; they are linked strongly to the petty conditions of co-migrants. In various cases, entrepreneurs play the role of friends in need, acting as third-party resources, to co-migrants, who turn to the former for help and self-actualization. Their activities contribute to bridging the relations between the larger community and Indonesian migrants living as a minority and as marginal foreign newcomers in Taiwan. Meanwhile, the case study of Indonesian return-migrant entrepreneurship at the home village of Malang found that migration and returning home experiences increase socio-economic mobility and develop socioeconomic activities at home villages. The migrants’ experiences and enterprise activities have emerged as a critical source of sustainable livelihoods, migration knowledge of production application, self-transformation, and the economic reintegration process for return migrants in their home villages, all of which can create a new life for returnees after migration. Practically and theoretically speaking, the manner in which migrant and return-migrant entrepreneurs perform economic adaptation or social adjustment, indicates that the socio-economic function, comprising valuable ties that cut across classes, can prevent the social and economic isolation of disadvantaged entrepreneurs, co-migrants, and return migrants in the community