Conflict, displacement, and economic revival: The case of the internally displaced minority entrepreneurs in Pakistan

This article examines enterprise activities developed by internally displaced religious minorities (IDRM) and the role that social capital plays in supporting such activities. In particular, the article examines how social capital is linked to microenterprise development and the economic survival/revival of internally displaced religious minorities in Pakistan and why the link between entrepreneurship and social capital is critical for contexts with absent or poorly designed enterprise development policies. A three-staged, sequential research design was adopted, which comprised the analysis of secondary data on IDRM, a face-to-face survey of entrepreneurs and interviews in two selected study sites. The evidence shows how the role of social capital in supporting entrepreneurial activities is determined by socioeconomic inequalities as well as the characteristics of the formal enterprise support infrastructure, that is, where formal institutions are weak, social capital is the main source of entrepreneurial support, with different types of social capital networks delivering different outcomes.