Abstract:

This conceptual paper proposes digital storytelling as a capacity building methodology for women entrepreneurs in African informal economies. Drawing on Strategy as Practice theory (Whittington 1996) and Bourdieu’s (1986) theory of capital, along with participatory research traditions and digital storytelling scholarship, the paper develops the Storytelling as Strategy (SaS) framework. The framework argues that participatory digital storytelling should be designed around co-production, skill redistribution, strategic self-representation, and collective empowerment. When designed this way, it may generate three forms of entrepreneurial capacity that conventional business development support often fails to produce: digital market presence, strategic business reflexivity, and collective economic networks. These capacities address specific gaps in support for women in African informal markets, responding to the rapid digital transformation of economies that has marginalised this group despite expanding opportunities for others. The argument is grounded in Kwa Mai-Mai market, one of Johannesburg's oldest traditional markets established in 1927, in South Africa. It is a representative of a broader class of Global South informal trading sites where Black women sustain livelihoods under intersecting inequalities.

Women entrepreneurs in African informal economies represent a critically underserved segment. Dominant research and development approaches remain largely extractive. They tend to document barriers and prescribe external solutions rather than build internal capacities for transformation. This paper argues for a fundamental rethinking of how interventions are designed as the question of research design is inseparable from whose entrepreneurial capacities are built. The SaS framework is offered as a conceptual contribution, a methodological proposal, and a proposition for future empirical investigation. It positions itself against existing digital storytelling frameworks and entrepreneurship storytelling models to establish its original contribution to gender focused entrepreneurship research in African business contexts.

Please choose your submission type: Full Paper

Primary Track: African Studies

Keywords: Entrepreneurial process & other spatial/temporal issues on African entrepreneurship.

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Ms. Nthabiseng Mabale

Biography