Coupling social networks with space: The embeddedness of low-skilled returnee’ entrepreneurship in rural China

Urban-to-rural return migration has become an increasingly important force reshaping rural livelihoods in China. Yet existing research on returnee entrepreneurship often assumes that migrants can transfer trans-local networks and resources accumulated during migration back to their hometowns and convert them directly into entrepreneurial advantage. This paper challenges this assumption by conceptualizing returnee entrepreneurship as a context-dependent process of network-space coupling, in which the effectiveness of network-based resources depends on their alignment with place-specific conditions. Drawing on qualitative fieldwork conducted in a county-level agricultural region in central China, this study combines participant observation, in-depth interviews, focus groups, and documentary analysis involving 19 participants. The findings show that low-skilled return migration is primarily driven by structural pressures in urban areas, including hukou-based exclusion, informal employment, unstable incomes, high living costs, and family obligations, which severely limit the accumulation of transferable financial, human, and social capital. Entrepreneurial formation after return is enabled through three interrelated local embeddedness: social embeddedness based on kinship and friendship ties, industrial embeddedness within county-level agricultural sectors, and institutional embeddedness shaped by rural governance and revitalization policies. At the same time, such embeddedness may generate path dependence and lock-in within low value-added activities. By advancing a network-space coupling perspective, this study deepens understanding of returnee entrepreneurship and rural transformation and offers policy-relevant insights into place-based rural development in peripheral regions.