Gea Wijers Ma Sc. Ma Arts

Flexible, contact through e-mail 

• Transnational entrepreneurship
• Institutional entrepreneurship
• The Cambodian Diaspora
• Development studies
• Region Southeast Asia, Cambodia

PhD Project

This research aims at describing and comparing the linkages between migratory experiences, entrepreneurial activities and contributions to structural institutional reform made by Cambodian American and Cambodian French returnees to Cambodia. A comparison between the influences of the American and French “cultures of exile”, an example of a liberal market economy compared to a European coordinated market economy, will bring forward how first generation Cambodian French and Cambodian American returnees employ their human, social and economic capital in entrepreneurial activities and to what extent these activities contribute to the structural reform of Cambodian economic institutions.

This project holds as a basic assumption that returnees are highly mobile and function within social networks in multiple, local and (inter)national, subjective realities. The question of returnee-migrants effectiveness in actively reforming Cambodian society by new venture creation is linked to theoretical debates on the benefits of circular migration. The research aims to contribute to the societal debate on the ways in which entrepreneurial activities may impact the development of an emerging economy.

Link to CCSS personal PhD Programme

Publications (Source: METIS VU)

• Zwemmen in een nieuw aquarium. Berichten uit Cambodja, Zoetermeer: Freemusketeers (2009)
• 'Determinants of the Digital Divide. A case study on digital development in Cambodia', Technology in Society. An International Journal (forthcoming 2010)

CV Gea Wijers april 2011