Manoeuvring in Uncertainty : On Agency, Strategies and Negotiations
Sub-Saharan Africa has seen wide-ranging economic and political change alongside civil and international wars. This volume focuses on the radical social uncertainties there, and how social actors perceive and cope with them in their everyday lives. It also suggests some ways to conceptualize both the actions and the environment of uncertainty.
Towards a conceptual framework of household coping: reflections from rural West Africa
The study and application of household coping have largely been confined to the problems of famine and food insecurity. Based on field insights from West Africa, this paper argues that understanding how households cope and allocate resources in times of crisis is of immense value to a broad array of development interventions. It also introduces a conceptual framework that evaluates household coping in exogenous and endogenous contexts. The application of this framework may provide a more informed approach to development intervention design, implementation and targeting that is sensitive to the differential needs and experiences of rural households and communities. Résumé L'etude et l'application des comportements des ménages face aux difficultés ont été largement confinées aux problemes de famine et de précarité alimentaire. S'appuyant sur l'observation de situations en Afrique occidentale, cet article suggère qu'une meilleure connaissance de la manière dont les ménages font face aux difficultés et affectent leurs ressources en temps de crise est extrêmement utile pour un large éventail d'interventions en faveur du développement. II présente aussi un cadre conceptuel d'évaluation des comportements des ménages face aux difficultés dans des contextes exogènes et endogènes. L'application de ce cadre peut fournir une approche mieux informée en matière de conception, de mise en oeuvre et de ciblage des interventions en faveur du développement, et plus sensible aux différents besoins et expériences des communautés et des ménages ruraux.
Annual review article: Is it time to rethink the gender agenda in entrepreneurship research?
This article develops a critique of contemporary approaches to analysing the impact of gender upon entrepreneurial propensity and activity. Since the 1990s, increasing attention has been afforded to the influence of gender on women’s entrepreneurial behaviour; such analyses have highlighted an embedded masculinity within the entrepreneurial discourse which privileges men as normative entrepreneurial actors. While invaluable in revealing a prevailing masculine bias within entrepreneurship, this critique is bounded by positioning women as a proxy for the gendered subject. This is a potentially limiting analysis that does not fully recognise gender as a human property with myriad articulations enacted throughout entrepreneurial activity. To progress debate, we engage more deeply with the notion of gender as a multiplicity, exploring the implications of such for future studies of entrepreneurial activity.