“People like us”: experiencing difference in the working life of immigrant women

Abstract

Purpose

The main aim of this article is to research the lived experience of difference. In this article, the authors are interested in the field of working life in the context of entrepreneurship among Turkish women in Sweden.

Design/methodology/approach

The article is based on the stories of two immigrant women entrepreneurs who reflect upon their experience of working life in the context of migration to Sweden. These two stories provide a ground for a discussion regarding the responding to and re‐making of difference by individual subjects. The authors’ analysis is grounded in discursive approaches to narratives, particularly in the positioning analysis.

Findings

In their discussion, the authors focus on the field of work to discuss the changing conditions that affect and are affected by particular constructions of difference in a migration context. In this, the authors present how difference is experienced and put into use differently by the individuals, even under very similar descriptive categories of difference.

Originality/value

This article contributes with an experiential account of difference. It favors the notion of lived experiences within the intersecting structures in the analysis of complex interactions between structures, agents, times and spaces. It demonstrates the importance of attending to spatial, temporal, structural and subjective dimensions of difference.

Citation

Aygören, H. and Wilińska, M. (2013), "“People like us”: experiencing difference in the working life of immigrant women", Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, Vol. 32 No. 6, pp. 575-591. https://doi.org/10.1108/EDI-07-2012-0062