Small Businesses As an Asset for European Citizenship: A Political Gaze on Street Shops Run By South-Asian Migrants in Lisbon

In this talk, I aim to explore how South Asian migrants in Lisbon, Portugal, are setting up small retail outlets as a means of obtaining residency permits in order to gain European citizenship after five years of residence. I argue that these migrants are using their small businesses to enhance their current citizenship status, revealing the power dynamics inherent in the "European Union and the rest" dichotomy. Within an ethnographic study, I have conducted several interviews with migrants originating from South Asian countries, especially Bangladesh and Nepal. I have observed a pattern, irrespective of country of origin or social class, in the pursuit of a 'red passport’. Migrants aim to take advantage of intra-EU free movement, with some of them planning to move to wealthier EU countries for better income prospects, despite, in some cases, already being middle-class. However, the 'red passport' represents more than just an economic opportunity; it is seen as a means to achieve social mobility, including access to public healthcare, better work-life balance, and higher education for themselves and, especially, for their children to enrich their cultural capital. These migrants are seeking the symbolic power attached to European citizenship to counterbalance their previous condition of multiple marginalities.