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Challenging the entrepreneurial discourse around women home-based workers’ empowerment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2023

Afreen Huq Open the ORCID record for Afreen Huq [Opens in a new window] ,
Annie Delaney  and
Ben Debney
Afreen Huq*
Affiliation:
RMIT University, Australia
Annie Delaney
Affiliation:
RMIT University, Australia
Ben Debney
Affiliation:
Western Sydney University, Australia
*
Afreen Huq, School of Management, RMIT University, 445 Swanston Street, Melbourne, VIC 3000, Australia. Email: afreen.huq@rmit.edu.au
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Abstract

This article explores dominant entrepreneurship discourse and practice surrounding informal women home-based workers, and their relationship to goals of individual empowerment. We argue that conventional neoliberal entrepreneurship discourse conflates empowerment and performativity, linking the capacity of women to develop greater agency with their incorporation into an economic regime with predetermined roles, labelled ‘empowerment’. Applying a critical lens, we analyse the development discourse on entrepreneurship and economic performativity in these terms – looking to understand the characteristics of empowerment concerning home-based workers in Bangladesh working for a fair-trade organisation and a domestic garment supply chain. We argue that the conflation of empowerment and performativity serves the convenience of neoliberal ideology rather than the empowerment needs of those to whom such discourses are applied. To complement our critique, based on the empowerment literature, we develop a conceptual framework of empowerment and agency encompassing individual and collective agency, considering these in light of the relationship between performativity and social reproduction. Coupling a more nuanced understanding of empowerment to the critique of the entrepreneurial discourse, as applied to women home-based workers, provides a theoretical contribution to the empowerment and entrepreneurial discourse literature.

Keywords

Entrepreneurial discourseeconomic performativitygendered entrepreneurial subjecthome-based workempowermentD63J16J4
Type
Gender, power and work
Information
The Economic and Labour Relations Review , Volume 33 , Issue 2 , June 2022 , pp. 308 - 328
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2022

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