In my three-paper dissertation - Making a Life on the Margins: An Ethnographic Account from Kutupalong, I study the socio-economic life of Rohingya refugees living in the world’s largest refugee camp, the Kutupalong Rohingya[1] refugee camp in Bangladesh. Over the last four years, I have conducted extended ethnography and collected both qualitative and quantitative data to understand how some Rohingya refugees navigate marginalization and organize their lives in an extremely deleterious institutional context. As I could observe the evolution of the camp and camp life for an extended period, in my theorizing I have taken a processual view and have applied a grounded theory approach and both abductive-inductive reasonings in my theorizing. Put together, reporting the findings from an extreme context, my dissertation papers further our understanding of identity, institutions, and entrepreneurship on the margins.

In my first paper I explore how self-organizing (e.g., organizing economic, social, religious and creative spaces) becomes instrumental to survive in continuous adversity and extreme uncertainties. Through the emerging concept - identity bootstrapping, in this paper I, along with my co-authors Pursey Heugens and Luca Berchicci, advance our understanding how people become more than mere ‘subject’ in a resource and identity constrained environment and the critical roles informal collective organizing plays in shaping individual identities and resilience. In the second paper of my dissertation, I delve into the topic of entrepreneurship on the margins and explore its role in shaping social structures. By theorizing entrepreneurship-led endemic institutions, which are emerging localized institutions that shape lives of the people living nearby locations, my co-authors Pursey Heugens and Katrin Smolka and I refuel the discussion on the value and power of ‘social space’, especially of ‘bazaar’, in shaping inclusion-exclusion pattern in a community, contributing primarily to the emerging literature on necessity entrepreneurship, social space, located institutions and inclusion-exclusion literature. 

Lastly, in my third dissertation paper, I explore livelihood choices of the refugees: particularly, when they choose entrepreneurship and if entrepreneurship helps them alleviate their necessities. For this project, I have created a micro-census panel of 5,000 Rohingya households. This is one of the first datasets that can systematically map past livelihood conditions of a forcibly displaced group, their present livelihood options and how they choose one. This project will help us better understand the decision processes behind livelihood choices on the margins of society and how those choices affect the necessity alleviating efforts, particularly, of the entrepreneurs. With my coauthors (Luca Berchicci and Pursey Heugens), I am currently writing the first draft of the paper and expect to contribute to the emerging literature on necessity entrepreneurs and their socio-economic behaviors.