Developing countries in Global South host 83% of the world’s refugee populations (UNHCR, 2022) and are struggling to create education, livelihoods, and social inclusion opportunities for these marginalised groups (Buscher, 2011; Jacobsen, 2006; Jacobsen & Fratzke, 2016). Skills development and vocational training are an intrinsic part of the education and livelihood strategies of the international actors and organisations in refugee crises (UNHCR 2019a; 2019b; 2014). UNESCO’s Global Monitory Report (2019) and UNHCR’s Global Strategies for Livelihoods (2014-2018) stress strengthening entrepreneurship skills for employment generations, empowerment, and decent work. These strategies are linked to SDG 4, particularly target 4.4, which addresses entrepreneurship through the expansion of technical and vocational skills. 

The growing narrative of the ‘enterprising self’ in education (Brunila & Siivonen, 2016; Down, 2009) and the world of work (Ainsworth & Hardy, 2008) has been translated to enterprising refugees in migration contexts. The increased focus on entrepreneur skills for refugees is directed towards the self-reliance of these marginalised subjects (UNHCR, 2005). However, the idea of self-reliance has been critiqued for its grounding in neoliberal ideology and usage as an exit strategy by donor organisations (Easton-Calabria & Omata, 2018; Skran & Easton-Calabria, 2020). In line with the international organisations’ focus on entrepreneurship, the National Policy on Skills Development and Entrepreneurship (2015) in India aims to harness the potential of its demographic dividend through enterprising individuals. Despite being a non-signatory of global refugee conventions, India receives a large number of refugees from all around the globe. However, the complex legal-political landscape of India creates numerous challenges related to the success, sustainability, and utilisation of entrepreneurship skills for refugees in the country.

This paper examines the entrepreneurship discourse within the skills development agenda of international organisations and how that interacts with the multidimensional identities of refugees and their social, political, and economic needs and aspirations in their host country, India.

Theoretically, going beyond the orthodox approaches to VET (McGrath et al., 2020), the paper combines capabilities and intersectional lenses to examine the effects of race, gender, class, ethnic, and religious identities of refugees on the entrepreneurial skills development and utilisation. In particular, the paper employs the concept of the capability to aspire and conversion factor from the capabilities canon and converges it with the intersectional inequality perspective. By bridging these two frameworks, it strengthens the capabilities account of VET that considers the multidimensional identities of VET attendees along with their socio-political, economic and migration contexts. 

The research included 66 participants from five different refugee groups including Afghan, Somali, Chin, Tibetan and Rohingya. Some participants of this research were staff and volunteers who worked with local and international refugee organisations. The research is a comparative case study of refugees in three big cities of India: Delhi, Hyderabad and Jaipur. The qualitative study employed semi-structured interviews, arts-informed participatory method and focus groups interviews as data collection methods with the participants to record their experiences and expectation from the available opportunities of skills and vocational training programmes and their usefulness in generating a sustainable livelihood. The participants were recruited through snowball sampling. Snowball sampling was employed as a data collection method for studying hard to reach marginalised populations (Volz and Heckathorn, 2008). In total, 48 semi-structured interviews, 4 focus groups and 14 one to one participatory drawing sessions were conducted. The research includes both documented and non-documented refugees. For the analysis of data, an inductive, interpretive approach (Blaxter, Hughes & Tight, 2010) is being employed in which themes and patterns of meaning are identified across a dataset in relation to the research questions (Patton, 2002).

By bringing to the forefront of consideration the interplay between global skills policies and the ground realities of five refugee groups in India, I argue 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. By drawing attention to structural, legal, economic, and social factors, the paper deals with the freedom and agency of refugees in choosing what kind of education and work they want to be engaged in. It further highlights the differences in entrepreneurial aspirations and experiences of different refugee communities and individuals that differ along the axes of gender, class, religion, and ethnicity.

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