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This study explores the outcomes of internal migration in Indonesia, specifically focusing on the intersecting themes of ethnicity, informality, and entrepreneurial migration. We examine how Javanese migrants perceive the benefits and challenges of their migration and subsequent engagement in the informal sector as self‐employed migrants/small business owners in and around Kupang’s traditional markets. We use a sequential mixed‐methods approach (a household survey with a structured interview [n=344] and in‐depth/semi‐structured interviews [n=28] in 2020). Drawing on Hein de Haas’s framework on the internal dynamics of migration, we explore the multifaceted outcomes of entrepreneurial migration beyond the economic consequences addressed in similar studies. The perceived positive impacts of this migration include sufficient income to cover daily needs and children’s education, as well as new remittances and employment opportunities for communities in Java and Kupang. However, these broadly empowering trends were set against the experience of those migrants who, because of less informal sector labour experience, could not easily negotiate their settlement in a new host environment, leading to varied adverse consequences. Ultimately, then, the article highlights the importance of social networks, knowledge, and reciprocity in supporting the successful establishment of entrepreneurial migrants in emerging destinations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of the world economy created its own footprint as a result of the phenomenon. 1/3 of that economic space is owned by the informal economy also referred to as the Local Economy or System D. The increasingly sophisticated and world-class phenomenon takes the place of the economic space left by the formal economy. The manipulation of the vast resources, the dynamic practices that take place in the legal and illegal dimensions, provide a guarantee of employment shadowed by survival. This paper traces the phenomenon occurring on the Sebatik Islands of Malaysia and Indonesia. The research approach is qualitative based on the interviews of key informants. The results suggest that this phenomenon occurs due to the fact that economic space and opportunities can be exploited for the sake of sustainability in meeting economic demands, especially marginalized groups at the border that ultimately establish a local integration of kinship relations beyond ethnicity, identity and ethnic boundaries itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]