Doaa Althalathini, H. Al-Dajani, N. Apostolopoulos
{"title":"Navigating Gaza’s conflict through women’s entrepreneurship","authors":"Doaa Althalathini, H. Al-Dajani, N. Apostolopoulos","doi":"10.1108/ijge-01-2020-0014","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Purpose – This paper explores the extent to which women’s entrepreneurship in conflict zones is an influential catalyst for liberalizing traditionally conservative gender norms. This purpose is achieved by focusing on women entrepreneurs in Gaza and how they actively renegotiate their multiple gender roles and navigate the social order through entrepreneurship. Design/methodology/approach This paper adopts the interpretivist approach where individual in-depth interviews were conducted with sixteen Palestinian women entrepreneurs operating in Gaza. Findings The findings demonstrate that the context of conflict itself and its impact on gender norms is a prime motivator for women to engage in entrepreneurial ventures. Some gender roles were constraining and other enabling for women to initiate and sustain their ventures in order to contribute to their families’ well-being. Despite the fact that the conflict context and entrepreneurship have contributed to enhancing the agency of women and their ability to navigate the conflict and its consequences, the gendered practices and assumptions are still used as guidance for women to grant legitimacy. Originality/value This paper contributes to the gender and entrepreneurship literature by giving a greater visibility to necessity-driven women entrepreneurs in an under researched conflict context, and demonstrates how prolonged conflict instigates social and economic changes that can empower women whilst also reinforcing certain gendered norms.","PeriodicalId":46720,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Gender and Entrepreneurship","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.1000,"publicationDate":"2020-08-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1108/ijge-01-2020-0014","citationCount":"10","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"International Journal of Gender and Entrepreneurship","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1108/ijge-01-2020-0014","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"BUSINESS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 10
Abstract
Purpose – This paper explores the extent to which women’s entrepreneurship in conflict zones is an influential catalyst for liberalizing traditionally conservative gender norms. This purpose is achieved by focusing on women entrepreneurs in Gaza and how they actively renegotiate their multiple gender roles and navigate the social order through entrepreneurship. Design/methodology/approach This paper adopts the interpretivist approach where individual in-depth interviews were conducted with sixteen Palestinian women entrepreneurs operating in Gaza. Findings The findings demonstrate that the context of conflict itself and its impact on gender norms is a prime motivator for women to engage in entrepreneurial ventures. Some gender roles were constraining and other enabling for women to initiate and sustain their ventures in order to contribute to their families’ well-being. Despite the fact that the conflict context and entrepreneurship have contributed to enhancing the agency of women and their ability to navigate the conflict and its consequences, the gendered practices and assumptions are still used as guidance for women to grant legitimacy. Originality/value This paper contributes to the gender and entrepreneurship literature by giving a greater visibility to necessity-driven women entrepreneurs in an under researched conflict context, and demonstrates how prolonged conflict instigates social and economic changes that can empower women whilst also reinforcing certain gendered norms.
期刊介绍:
Launched in 2009, the International Journal of Gender and Entrepreneurship (IJGE) aims to facilitate the natural evolution of the field of gender and entrepreneurship by drawing together the very best research contributions from around the world. The journal seeks to: -Provide a dedicated publication outlet for high calibre, international research of interest to scholars, entrepreneurs and policy makers in the field of gender and entrepreneurship -Offer a unique perspective on the practice of gender and entrepreneurship by including sections dedicated to practitioner and policy content -Support a more consistent global approach to the presentation of research in the field -Platform the work of dynamic young researchers and those who are in a position to offer new perspectives on this particular research area -Enable those active in the area as researchers, educators, trainers, practitioners, support personnel and policy makers to keep up to date with the field on an international level. The coverage of the journal includes, but is not limited to: Entrepreneurship, Female/Women’s entrepreneurship , Business, Management, Strategy, Gender, Economics, Internationalization, Marketing.