Sindani, Tabitha ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8638-3767 (2023) Examining the everyday entrepreneurial experiences of ‘Jua Kali’ women entrepreneurs in rural Kenya. In: Gender Work and Organization Conference - Marginalized Gender Identities: How can Intellectual Activism Transform Work and Organization, 28 - 30th June 2023, Stellenbosch, South Africa. Stellenbosch Business School - Gender Work and Organisation - National Research Foundation, Stellenbosch, South Africa, p. 363.

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Abstract

This paper examines the everyday entrepreneurial experiences of jua kali women entrepreneurs in rural Kenya. Jua kali is a Swahili term that means fierce sunlight, and refers to an informal economy whose unlicenced enterprises operate in open-air marketplaces, literally “under the hot sun”. This qualitative study investigated the everyday work- and care experiences of jua kali women entrepreneurs in rural Kenya. The study drew on observation data captured in fieldwork photographs and in-depth interviews with 40 jua kali women entrepreneurs from Vihiga and Kisumu counties. All data were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim, coded in NVivo 12 Pro, and analysed thematically and interpreted through a feminist intersectionality lens. The findings reveal that, due to a lack of childcare support and an absence of social welfare benefits for the elderly, jua kali women are confronted with time–income trade-offs and the unresolved tension of a work–family balance. They negotiate a triple burden of work- and care roles in their everyday experiences, dominated by household chores, childcare, and elderly welfare care roles, as well as subsistence farming work. They also face uncertainty due to sudden evictions and demolitions of marketplaces, and harassment by kanjo (council tax officials). In conclusion, these findings extend critical entrepreneurship research that suggests, by itself, entrepreneurship does not ameliorate the negative effects of subordination for rural women. Rather, it reproduces structural and contextual constraints that trap women in the same old conventional structures of misogyny in rural Kenya.

Item Type:	Conference Proceedings
Title of Proceedings:	Gender Work and Organization Conference - Marginalized Gender Identities: How can Intellectual Activism Transform Work and Organization, 28 - 30th June 2023, Stellenbosch, South Africa
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Jua Kali, women entrepreneurs, entrepreneurial experiences, gender, patriarchy
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General)
Faculty / School / Research Centre / Research Group:	Greenwich Business School Greenwich Business School > Executive Business Centre
Related URLs:	Organisation Organisation
Last Modified:	12 Mar 2025 16:40
URI:	http://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/49993

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