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Licence: CC BY: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - Women's entrepreneurship in Saudi Arabia
T2 - feminist solidarity and political activism in disguise?'
AU - Alkhaled, Sophie
PY - 2021/5/31
Y1 - 2021/5/31
N2 - This paper is a longitudinal study that uses insights from postcolonial feminism to explore women’s entrepreneurship as a political form of feminist organising for social change in Saudi Arabia. Postcolonial feminist approaches challenge Western feminism, which can obscure the diversity of women’s lived experiences, agency and activism. Through Bayat’s (2013) theory of 'quiet encroachment', I identify the ways in which contemporary Western conceptualisations of feminist solidarity and social movements have dismissed ‘Other’ women’s ‘silent’, protracted and (dis)organised activism in parts of the Middle East. By exploring how Saudi women have utilised their entrepreneurial space as a legitimate platform for change, I aim to enrich understanding of women’s activism through everyday solidarity practices, which allow them to quietly encroach onto the previously forbidden political space. The findings exemplify how their activism ‘quietly’ developed over time through a three- step process - from the entrepreneur aiming to empower women within their organisation, to developing feminist consciousness within their entrepreneurial network, to becoming a ‘political activist’ lobbying for policy changes for women. These solidarity practices exemplify the West’s relationship with ‘the Other’, and reveal that feminist organising for social change must be explored within its own context in order to fully appreciate its global political potential.
AB - This paper is a longitudinal study that uses insights from postcolonial feminism to explore women’s entrepreneurship as a political form of feminist organising for social change in Saudi Arabia. Postcolonial feminist approaches challenge Western feminism, which can obscure the diversity of women’s lived experiences, agency and activism. Through Bayat’s (2013) theory of 'quiet encroachment', I identify the ways in which contemporary Western conceptualisations of feminist solidarity and social movements have dismissed ‘Other’ women’s ‘silent’, protracted and (dis)organised activism in parts of the Middle East. By exploring how Saudi women have utilised their entrepreneurial space as a legitimate platform for change, I aim to enrich understanding of women’s activism through everyday solidarity practices, which allow them to quietly encroach onto the previously forbidden political space. The findings exemplify how their activism ‘quietly’ developed over time through a three- step process - from the entrepreneur aiming to empower women within their organisation, to developing feminist consciousness within their entrepreneurial network, to becoming a ‘political activist’ lobbying for policy changes for women. These solidarity practices exemplify the West’s relationship with ‘the Other’, and reveal that feminist organising for social change must be explored within its own context in order to fully appreciate its global political potential.
KW - women’s entrepreneurship
KW - political activism
KW - social change
KW - postcolonial feminism
KW - quiet encroachment
KW - feminist solidarity
KW - reflexivity
U2 - 10.1111/gwao.12626
DO - 10.1111/gwao.12626
M3 - Journal article
VL - 28
SP - 950
EP - 972
JO - Gender, Work and Organization
JF - Gender, Work and Organization
SN - 0968-6673
IS - 3
ER -