Research papers in Environmental and Spatial Analysis Series 88 Do concepts of ethnic economies explain existing minority enterprises? The Turkish speaking economies in London

Minority businesses have recently received a lot of scholarly attention. This paper critically analyses the concept of ethnic economies with regard to their applicability to recent migrant communities in specific urban settings. The critique is illustrated with case studies and information on Turkish speaking businesses in the UK, which to date have not been studied in detail. Only Turkish Cypriot businesses have received some scholarly attention. ‘Turkish speaking ’ includes Turkish Cypriots, Turks and Kurds. The empirical basis is interviews with key informants, case studies of businessmen and women, and secondary analysis of statistics and community material, including business guides for Turkish speaking businesses from 1999 and 2003. 3Introduction Discussions about globalisation have focused our attention on transnational companies and large movements of people. The global players are governments, non-governmental organisations, NGOs, supranational and regional organisations and transnational companies that influence the large socio-economic and political framework in which we interact