Rethinking Skills Development and Entrepreneurship for Refugees: The Case of Five Refugee Communities in India

This paper explores the understudied yet greatly relevant relationship between entrepreneurship and skills development for refugees in India from five different communities: Afghan, Rohingya, Tibetan, Chin, and Somali. Building on interviews, focus groups and participatory drawings from 66 refugees and staff respondents, it foregrounds the compounded interplay of skills development with intersectional oppression of refugees and their socio-political freedoms in navigating livelihoods and entrepreneurship avenues. By combining capabilities with intersectionality, the paper argues that the idea of entrepreneurship for refugees should seek to move beyond the neoliberal agenda of self-employment and self-reliance and towards well-being, social integration, and holistic development.