Abstract
Contextualization of entrepreneurship research and the impact of the multiplicity of context(s) dimensions in terms of ‘where’ and ‘when’ entrepreneurship happens has gained momentum in the last decade. The ‘where’ dimension relates to the social, spatial, and institutional environment whereas the ‘when’ context dimension refers to the historical and temporal context (Welter, 2011). Calls for the research on the interplay of context on women entrepreneurship especially in marginalized and resource-deprived Global South contexts continues to be echoed in recent critical stream of research. Entrepreneurship is often portrayed as a desirable and flexible pathway to women’s empowerment from conditions of subordination, however recent critical entrepreneurship studies have criticized this false promise of entrepreneurship that often ignores the prevailing structural and contextual constraints to women’s entrepreneurial performance. This paper examines the influence of social context, particularly the impact of extended family on Jua Kali [1] women entrepreneurs in rural Kenya. This qualitative study draws data from 20 in-depth interviews with Jua Kali women in Vihiga County in Western Kenya. The findings reveal that rural women entrepreneurs engage in Jua Kali entrepreneurship because of the flexibility and convenience it offers them to juggle between multiple domestic responsibilities, alongside entrepreneurial activities. However, due to women’s household demands and extended family responsibilities, they are faced with intersecting financial and time constraints to their entrepreneurial performance. On a theoretical level, the paper extends the critical entrepreneurialism debate and contextualising entrepreneurship research by exposing the ‘dark side’ of African extended family system and over-embeddedness of family and social networks as a constraint to women’s entrepreneurship, provides rich insights on rural women’s entrepreneurship and ‘mumpreneurship’ from the Global South context, and further proposes recommendations and implications for enterprise policy.
Key words: Women Entrepreneurship, Jua Kali, Gender, Social Context, Extended Family, Mumpreneurship, Rural Kenya, Sub-Saharan Africa, Global South
[1] Jua Kali is a Swahili term, referring to an informal economy whose unlicensed enterprises operate in open-air marketplaces, literally ‘under the hot sun’.