Syrian immigrants as urban entrepreneurs: Small business ownership and the sense of place in Gaziantep

After nine years of their migration journey, Syrian immigrants started their self-resilience and adaptation process in the host cities. In Gaziantep, a demographical, cultural, and economic change has been observed within the last couple of years due to the large number of Syrian immigrants living in the city who have started establishing their own small business to serve mainly the migrants community as they are aware of their culture and taste preferences. In this research, self-employment and entrepreneurship are extensively studied to show how Syrians cope with the lack of appropriate job opportunities in the host city. Besides that, this research discusses the established relation between migrants' old and new city through the existence of the migrants' owned enterprises and small businesses. Moreover, forty migrants' owned enterprises were chosen through simple random sampling. Separately, the interviewees have participated in semi-structured interviews; also, qualitative data analysis was conducted. The central theses of the research herein is that the Syrian immigrant experience as ensconced in entrepreneurial activities is firstly a middle-class socioeconomic status building. Secondly, there is an ongoing interaction between the Gaziantep metropolitan areas residents and the newcoming entrepreneurs. And third, Syrian entrepreneurship in Gaziantep opens up new spaces and possibilities for integration. Key words: Integration, Turkey, Refugees, Entrepreneurship, Identity, Livelihood