Abstract
Existing scholarship often adopts a cultural or neo-liberal socio-economic perspective to study UK-based South Asian ethnic minority migrant businesses (EMMBs), resulting in incomplete portrayals of their activities. This approach tends to overemphasise either ethnocultural identities or market forces while overlooking the diversity among groups like Indians and Bangladeshis, leading to problematic homogenisation. By applying Pierre Bourdieu’s sociology, we examine the habitus of Bangladeshi and Indian business owners and utilise qualitative data from 50 interviews to reveal the complex interplay of structural biases and the agency of EMMB owners. This analysis highlights the intertwined nature of class-based and ethno-religious inequalities, demonstrating the dynamic relationship between the systems of dispositions and the various positions of South Asian EMMB owners in the UK.