On 30 June 2025, Dr Saba Al Kuntar successfully defended her PhD thesis: 'Entrepreneurship in Refugee Contexts: Multi-level Analysis of Syrian Entrepreneurial Activities in Urban Areas in Lebanon.'
Her research examines the experiences of Syrian refugees in Lebanon as they attempt to establish businesses within a highly precarious and restrictive environment.
The thesis identifies and analyzes three distinct types of entrepreneurs - striving, artisan and established, based on their varying degrees of informality and access to resources such as skills, capital, social networks and legal status. It highlights how these differences shape uneven experiences of precarity and inform diverse strategies for maneuvering constraints.
By foregrounding the role of intangible resources like social networks and unpacking how development-oriented approaches interact with host country politics, this research challenges dominant narratives of refugee self-reliance and emphasizes the political embeddedness of refugee economic life.
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Rewatch Saba's defence introduction
- Researcher
