This book is the product of a significant number of fortunate coincidences. My first interest in the Somali community in South Africa arose in 2009, when I was carrying out my articles of clerkship at a law firm in Cape Town. One morning, while I was seated in my office cubicle, a senior colleague placed a copy of the Cape Times on my desk. In a rushed voice she instructed me to set aside my work, and rather spend my day helping her write a response to an article. I looked closer and read the article below the headline ‘Somalis Refuse to Sign “One-sided” Deal for Spaza Owners’. It was about an informal trade agreement governing Somali-run shops in Gugulethu township. My colleague was alarmed at the anti-competitive nature of the agreement's terms, and the failure of the Competition Commission to take any action over the arrangement. I took up her request and worked on an opinion piece analysing the agreement from a legal perspective, which was published in the Cape Times that month. However, the matter continued to linger in my mind, as I struggled to understand why authorities had responded that way.

The following year I by chance came across an advertisement for a research position at the African Centre for Migration & Society (ACMS) at the University of the Witwatersrand to study crime affecting foreign shopkeepers in the Western Cape and their ability to access formal and informal justice mechanisms. I applied and was selected for the project. The data I collected during the course of the project informed my PhD dissertation and, later, this book.

My fortune in the field of migration studies continued. In September 2010 I met Mohamed Aden Osman (known more commonly by the name ‘Xadiis’) of the Somali Association of South Africa. He accompanied me to interviews, acted as an interpreter where needed, and alerted me to news, meetings and other key events involving the Somali community. Over the years he shared many of his life experiences with me, some of which are featured in the book.

These events – completely unplanned – led me to specialise in the field of immigrant entrepreneurship in South Africa, a topic that has preoccupied me ever since.

The ACMS study entailed conducting 194 qualitative interviews between September 2010 and August 2013, with findings published in three separate reports.