An investigation on the Entrepreneurial Activities of Indigenous Women
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Introduction
Indigenous women are one of the world’s most socially marginalised communities (IFAD, 2014). The idea of empowering women to alleviate poverty by the special and economic development of women is related with women’s entrepreneurship (Shah and Saurabh, 2015). There is an increasing need for entrepreneurial platforms among indigenous women to facilitate their communities’ well-being. Researchers and academics lack interest and attention to examine the concept of indigenous female entrepreneurship (IWE) which suggests that this topic is scarcely studied in academia. Although numerous studies on women undertakings (Ahl, 2006 and Bardasi et al. 2011) and IWE (Anderson, 2002, Dana, 2006 and Foley, 2008) have been undertaken, these two ideas rarely have crossed, and limited study has been carried out into IWE features.
The discussion thus takes motivation from the goal to explore the results of gender ideology in the area of entrepreneurship and indigenous intersections. The discussion also attempts to fill the literature vacuum in three areas: gender, entrepreneurship and indigenousness through the research on the junction of IWE. The debate also identifies the structural complexity of IWE and provides an analytical framework for analysing the interconnectedness and reflexivity of IWE (Romero and Valdez, 2016 and Anthias, 2013). This will help to assess the diversity of indigenous women’s business experiences. The conversation focuses more on supporting the broad range of experience according to IWE’s existing realities, practical ideas and social identities throughout the world (Lindsey, 2016).
The importance of the topic is in developing the effective theoretical development of IWE that will help to develop a good IWE research framework. On the other side, the discussion will help in practical terms generate useful insights to encourage international organisations to promote IWE (Maguirre et al. 2016). For example, Maguirre et al. (2016) discovered that creative procedures for enabling women to be empowered should be in place. Research was carried out on native people in Mexico using 70 in-depth interviews with an inductive technique. The results imply that the masculine society is responsible for slowing down women’s empowerment. However, a number of factors exist, such as job security, access to micro-credits, and gender equality measures, which can help facilitate entrepreneurship for indigenous women.
The research has shown that social enterprises are important to facilitate women’s overall well-being and to promote economic empowerment. The focus was on generating possibilities for working together with women to build micro-enterprises that lead to a path towards equal society. Women are also likely to take part in the decision-making process with a genuine source of revenue that inspire numerous other indigenous women to have an entrepreneurial attitude and objective. This discussion offers a systematic approach in which the focus is on critically discussing the growth of IWE in IWE contextualization. Following this analysis, the interconnections between IWE, IE, and WE are critically addressed and theoretical concepts of positionality and intersectionality are incorporated. Finally, the primary debate draws a conclusion.
Sociological perspective of the IWE and the concept of enterprise
Unfortunately, indigenous women face gender challenges, including limited access to education and poverty (Moyle and Dollard, 2008 and Wood and Davidson, 2011). They are also more striking victims of violence and sexual abuse (Amnesty International, 2014). More importantly and regrettably, indigenous women are also exposed to many forms of social and Community violence (Pearson and Daff, 2014). Indigenous women face discrimination and marginalisation over a period of time (Burman, 2016). They have generally unreported and under-researched roles in companies, notably their entrepreneurial identity in their community and culture, because of the current patriarchal challenges which do not allow them to create a business identity (Kuokkanen, 2011). In reality, the typical problem of indigenous women’s recovery is the limitation of their business studies because the majority of problems of indigenous people are addressed by cultural anthropologists (Wilson, 2005). The possibility of aboriginal women’s entrepreneurship at both the practical and intellectual level is therefore generally disregarded. IWE studies are apparently late and there were not many indigenous women entrepreneurship programmes (Moyle and Dolalrd, 2008). IWE is not just a subject in academia, but also the potential component of gender equality and standardisation (OCDE, 2012). It is also pushed to achieve the goals of sustainable development (IFAD, 2004).
Consequently, knowing indigenous women’s business activity is a means of improving self-emancipation, well-being, and self-confidence through economic and social empowerment (Kuokkanen, 2011 and Movono and Dahles, 2017). The sociological foundation for indigenous enterprise therefore builds on the concept of recognising indigenous women’s discrimination, self-determination and the concept of indigenous women’s emancipation.
Discussion Process
A series of databases and queuing multiple data bases have helped to understand that although empirical research on the research topic is a rare feature in mainstream literature, there is a limited range of research work in developed nations (Moyle and Dollard, 2008, Pearson, Daff, 2014, Wood and Davidson, 2011) and in Canada (Dzisi, 2008 and Witbooi and Upper, 2011). Some studies are also available in Asia (Moving and Dahles, 2017 and Taibi et al. 2018). It is well-known that indigenous cultures have given diverse global realities and different cultural ideals (Padilla-Melendez, 2018). For instance, the findings of Padilla-Melendez (2018) reveal that IWE prevails in Latin America, even if various economic and social concerns have damaged the country. The rationale behind such a growth was anchored in three important factors: community values, individual characteristics and general standards of society. To this end the community of Quechua has been examined in order to create a generic value for future women entrepreneurs. Many social, Community and individual facilitators and the help of indigenous and non-indigenous organisations were available. Quechua’s culture is strongly centred on the idea of teamwork. But there are also individualist situations that frequently obstruct the advancement of IWE. There is therefore a prospect of developing social and commercial value with a greater focus on collaboration. Better focus on collective goals than the personal emphasis on businesses would benefit better.
Peredo et al. (2012) also indicate in their findings that entrepreneurship opportunities in practically all cultures for native women are uncertain. Some problems are linked to the lack of social capital, whilst other prevalent problems relate mainly to access to capital and capital.
In this respect, the only useful option is to do adequate study on indigenous communities and to draw up policies on entrepreneurship as the main purpose of reconstruction. It is also cautious to ensure that the reality and concerns of indigenous populations are critically addressed. Such an approach will be helpful and helpful in creating additional options and chances for indigenous women who are commonly affected. A longitudinal method could also be possible to generate some intriguing and useful insight of the research problem that contribute to constructive actions.
There is also an increasing understanding that indigenous women are pushed to live a diverse culture by imposing social standards, concepts and values of communities and structural disparities. The results of most of the journals indicate that indigenous female entrepreneurs are scarcely represented compared with other business categories. The lack of research has already been highlighted (Diochon, 2014 and Wood and Davidson, 2011). The general idea of entrepreneurship also indicates that women are typically believed to be less conducive to entrepreneurial goals (Orser and Riding, 2016). The bulk of extant research is centred on the qualitative element of case studies, systematic reviews and interviews to understand and evaluate the IWE phenomena. The sociodemographic profile of IWE (Taibi et al. 2018) is also unknown as the first research on WE, which investigates the psychological characteristics and social demographic characteristics of female entrepreneurs (Bardasi et al. 2011). In this connection, Pearson and Daff (2014) pointed out that the lack of public data on this demographic makes it difficult to do specialised research describing the education, socio-demographic issues of the IWE and related experiments. In some research, IWE was researched using achievement and empowerment in gender equality (Gallindo-Reyes, 2016).
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