title: Refugee resettlement and socio-economic participation through entrepreneurship: The case of New Zealand

authors: Fatokun, Kolawole Ishola

abstract: Entrepreneurship is often viewed as a feasible pathway for refugee resettlement. It is regarded as a means for refugees to find employment and participate in socio-economic activities. Previous studies have suggested refugee entrepreneurship as a pathway for refugee integration. However, it is not enough to assert that entrepreneurship is a pathway for refugees to integrate and resettle in a host community; we need to understand how entrepreneurship contributes to their resettlement. The current knowledge needs to be expanded within the context of resettlement by exploring why refugees start businesses, how refugee entrepreneurship aids resettlement, the types of businesses refugees engage in, and the reasons behind these choices. How does refugee entrepreneurship influence resettlement? Focusing on spatiality, this study addresses the gap caused by the lack of a context-specific study examining refugee entrepreneurship and resettlement in a host country.

A synthesised conceptual framework that provides a structured overview of key ideas, concepts, theories, and relationships drawn from existing research and literature on (refugee) entrepreneurship and resettlement has been neglected. Exploring the phenomenon of refugee entrepreneurship and its connection to resettlement necessitates the development of a synthesised conceptual framework. In conducting this study, the framework is based on a synthesis of: (1) the mechanisms (a broad theoretical discussion) driving the motivation of (refugee) entrepreneurs; (2) social capital theory; and (3) mixed embeddedness theory.

Focusing on New Zealand as a refugee-receiving country, the developed novel context-aware conceptual framework is applied to improve understanding of the linkage between refugee entrepreneurship and resettlement. How the “enabling” factors of refugee entrepreneurship transform misfortune into positive outcomes for refugees is revealed. The term “enabling” describes how refugees overcome difficulties and turn challenges into elements that drive positive outcomes for them.

This study provides answers to why refugees engage in business activities. This improves our understanding of the motives of refugee entrepreneurs beyond the traditional push and pull dichotomy of necessity and opportunity recognition. Although motivated to start businesses, refugees encounter significant barriers to entrepreneurship and need to actively participate in socio-economic activities to support their resettlement through entrepreneurship. Refugee resettlement through entrepreneurship is a transformative process shaped by their experiences from their home country, culture, transition, and pre-entrepreneurial activities in the host country.

Applying the interpretive approach, data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 21 refugee entrepreneurs, using a semi-structured interview guide. Qualitative methods that uniquely enable the explanation of the participants’ agentic lived experiences, capturing individuals’ meanings and interpretations of their behaviours, events, and contexts, were employed. Abductive reasoning was used to identify themes, codes, and categories. Raw data were organised through the first-order coding or open coding process, where sets of data were closely reviewed and integrated with other data to develop broader themes and theoretical dimensions. NVivo software was utilised to support and enhance the rigour of data analysis.

This study finds that refugees must transition from informal to formal entrepreneurs to resettle through entrepreneurship. This change requires support from drivers of mixed embeddedness (DME) and government intervention through policy change, especially for refugees who arrive as adults.

text: Refugee resettlement and socio-economic participation through entrepreneurship: The case of New Zealand Entrepreneurship is often viewed as a feasible pathway for refugee resettlement. It is regarded as a means for refugees to find employment and participate in socio-economic activities. Previous studies have suggested refugee entrepreneurship as a pathway for refugee integration. However, it is not enough to assert that entrepreneurship is a pathway for refugees to integrate and resettle in a host community; we need to understand how entrepreneurship contributes to their resettlement. The current knowledge needs to be expanded within the context of resettlement by exploring why refugees start businesses, how refugee entrepreneurship aids resettlement, the types of businesses refugees engage in, and the reasons behind these choices. How does refugee entrepreneurship influence resettlement? Focusing on spatiality, this study addresses the gap caused by the lack of a context-specific study examining refugee entrepreneurship and resettlement in a host country.

A synthesised conceptual framework that provides a structured overview of key ideas, concepts, theories, and relationships drawn from existing research and literature on (refugee) entrepreneurship and resettlement has been neglected. Exploring the phenomenon of refugee entrepreneurship and its connection to resettlement necessitates the development of a synthesised conceptual framework. In conducting this study, the framework is based on a synthesis of: (1) the mechanisms (a broad theoretical discussion) driving the motivation of (refugee) entrepreneurs; (2) social capital theory; and (3) mixed embeddedness theory.

Focusing on New Zealand as a refugee-receiving country, the developed novel context-aware conceptual framework is applied to improve understanding of the linkage between refugee entrepreneurship and resettlement. How the “enabling” factors of refugee entrepreneurship transform misfortune into positive outcomes for refugees is revealed. The term “enabling” describes how refugees overcome difficulties and turn challenges into elements that drive positive outcomes for them.

This study provides answers to why refugees engage in business activities. This improves our understanding of the motives of refugee entrepreneurs beyond the traditional push and pull dichotomy of necessity and opportunity recognition. Although motivated to start businesses, refugees encounter significant barriers to entrepreneurship and need to actively participate in socio-economic activities to support their resettlement through entrepreneurship. Refugee resettlement through entrepreneurship is a transformative process shaped by their experiences from their home country, culture, transition, and pre-entrepreneurial activities in the host country.

Applying the interpretive approach, data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 21 refugee entrepreneurs, using a semi-structured interview guide. Qualitative methods that uniquely enable the explanation of the participants’ agentic lived experiences, capturing individuals’ meanings and interpretations of their behaviours, events, and contexts, were employed. Abductive reasoning was used to identify themes, codes, and categories. Raw data were organised through the first-order coding or open coding process, where sets of data were closely reviewed and integrated with other data to develop broader themes and theoretical dimensions. NVivo software was utilised to support and enhance the rigour of data analysis.

This study finds that refugees must transition from informal to formal entrepreneurs to resettle through entrepreneurship. This change requires support from drivers of mixed embeddedness (DME) and government intervention through policy change, especially for refugees who arrive as adults.

year: 2025-09-02

title: Relationship between science and technology in the New Zealand curriculum

authors: Jones, Alister

abstract: New Zealand underwent major curriculum reforms in the early1990s. These reforms were determined by the New Zealand Curriculum Framework (Ministry of Education 1993), which provides an overarching framework for the development of curricula in New Zealand and which defines seven broad essential learning areas. The seven essential learning areas that describe in broad terms the knowledge and understanding that all students need to acquire, are health and well-being, the arts, social sciences, technology, science, mathematics,and language and languages. For example, the essential learning area of science includes the subjects of science, biology, chemistry, physics, earth sciences, agriculture, horticulture, and geography, as well as aspects of home economics and environmental studies.

text: Relationship between science and technology in the New Zealand curriculum New Zealand underwent major curriculum reforms in the early1990s. These reforms were determined by the New Zealand Curriculum Framework (Ministry of Education 1993), which provides an overarching framework for the development of curricula in New Zealand and which defines seven broad essential learning areas. The seven essential learning areas that describe in broad terms the knowledge and understanding that all students need to acquire, are health and well-being, the arts, social sciences, technology, science, mathematics,and language and languages. For example, the essential learning area of science includes the subjects of science, biology, chemistry, physics, earth sciences, agriculture, horticulture, and geography, as well as aspects of home economics and environmental studies.

year: 1997

title: Mana Wahine Geographies: Spiritual, Spatial and Embodied Understandings of Papatūānuku

authors: Simmonds, Naomi Beth

subjects: Mana wahine

abstract: This thesis is a theoretical and empirical exploration of Māori women's knowledges and understandings of Papatūānuku in contemporary Aotearoa. The primary focus of this research is on the complexities, connections, and contradictions of Māori women's embodied relationships with the spaces of Papatūānuku - spaces that are simultaneously material, discursive, symbolic, and spiritual. In doing so, I displace the boundaries between coloniser/colonised, self/other, rational/irrational and scientific/spiritual. I demonstrate that Māori women's colonised realities produce multiple, complex and hybrid understandings of Papatūānuku. 

This thesis has three main strands. The first is theoretical. I offer mana wahine (Māori feminist discourses) as another perspective for geography that engages with the complex intersections of colonisation, race and gender. A mana wahine geography framework is a useful lens through which to explore the complexities of Māori women's relationships to space and place. This framework contributes to, and draws together, feminist geographies and Māori and indigenous academic scholarship.

Autobiographical material is woven with joint and individual semi-structured in-depth interviews conducted with nine Māori women in the Waikato region. The second strand, woven into this thesis, is a critical examination of the colonisation of Māori women's spiritual and embodied relationships to Papatūānuku. The invisibility of Māori women's knowledges in dominant conceptualisations of mythology, tikanga and wairua discourses is not a harmless omission rather it contains a political imperative that maintains the hegemony of colonialism and patriarchy. I argue that to understand further Māori women's relationships to space and place an examination of wairua discourses is necessary.

The third strand reconfigures embodied and spatial conceptualisations of Papatūānuku. Māori women's maternal bodies are intimately tied to Papatūānuku in a way that challenges the oppositional distinctions between mind/body and biology/social inscription. Māori women's maternal bodies (and the representation of them in te reo Māori) are constructed by, and in turn, construct Papatūānuku. Furthermore, women's spatial relationship to tūrangawaewae, home space and wider environmental concerns demonstrates the co-constitution of subjectivities, bodies and space/place. 

My hope is that this thesis will add to geographical literature by addressing previously ignored knowledges and that it will contribute to indigenous scholarship by providing a spatial perspective.

text: Mana Wahine Geographies: Spiritual, Spatial and Embodied Understandings of Papatūānuku This thesis is a theoretical and empirical exploration of Māori women's knowledges and understandings of Papatūānuku in contemporary Aotearoa. The primary focus of this research is on the complexities, connections, and contradictions of Māori women's embodied relationships with the spaces of Papatūānuku - spaces that are simultaneously material, discursive, symbolic, and spiritual. In doing so, I displace the boundaries between coloniser/colonised, self/other, rational/irrational and scientific/spiritual. I demonstrate that Māori women's colonised realities produce multiple, complex and hybrid understandings of Papatūānuku. 

This thesis has three main strands. The first is theoretical. I offer mana wahine (Māori feminist discourses) as another perspective for geography that engages with the complex intersections of colonisation, race and gender. A mana wahine geography framework is a useful lens through which to explore the complexities of Māori women's relationships to space and place. This framework contributes to, and draws together, feminist geographies and Māori and indigenous academic scholarship.

Autobiographical material is woven with joint and individual semi-structured in-depth interviews conducted with nine Māori women in the Waikato region. The second strand, woven into this thesis, is a critical examination of the colonisation of Māori women's spiritual and embodied relationships to Papatūānuku. The invisibility of Māori women's knowledges in dominant conceptualisations of mythology, tikanga and wairua discourses is not a harmless omission rather it contains a political imperative that maintains the hegemony of colonialism and patriarchy. I argue that to understand further Māori women's relationships to space and place an examination of wairua discourses is necessary.

The third strand reconfigures embodied and spatial conceptualisations of Papatūānuku. Māori women's maternal bodies are intimately tied to Papatūānuku in a way that challenges the oppositional distinctions between mind/body and biology/social inscription. Māori women's maternal bodies (and the representation of them in te reo Māori) are constructed by, and in turn, construct Papatūānuku. Furthermore, women's spatial relationship to tūrangawaewae, home space and wider environmental concerns demonstrates the co-constitution of subjectivities, bodies and space/place. 

My hope is that this thesis will add to geographical literature by addressing previously ignored knowledges and that it will contribute to indigenous scholarship by providing a spatial perspective.

year: 2009