The invisible (woman) entrepreneur? Shifting the discourse from fisheries diversification to entrepreneurship

Bibliographic Data

ID4446629
AuthorsMagnus Gustavsson (0000-0002-6469-0675, Ruralis – Institute for Rural and Regional Research Trondheim Norway, corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume61
Issue4
Pages743-758
Publication date2021-10-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSociologia Ruralis (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0038-0199 • E-ISSN: 1467-9523
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/soru.12343
OpenAlexW3148959901
LanguageEN
Citations received12
References cited32

In response to ongoing economic downturns in the small-scale fishing sector, there have been calls for fishing businesses to add value to fishing catches. Whilst such activities would have gendered implications, such proposals often do not consider the gendered contexts in which entrepreneurship is placed, nor how this form of entrepreneurship works for the women involved. The article draws on in-depth narrative interviews with women in fishing families in England and Wales who have started, initiated or explored entrepreneurial opportunities to examine (i) whether entrepreneurship enables a (re)negotiation of gender relations within families and (ii) how entrepreneurship develops over the lifecourse. The research is conceptually framed through the literature on women's 'entrepreneurship', family embedded perspectives of entrepreneurship, 'Mumpreneurship' combined with a lifecourse approach. I found that although women's traditional invisibility often became reproduced through their entrepreneurship in fishing family contexts, women's fisheries entrepreneurship challenged traditional gender relations. In becoming entrepreneurs women negotiated their entrepreneurship with other gendered roles, such as motherhood, over the lifecourse. I argue that shifting the discourse from fisheries diversification to entrepreneurship make it possible to take women seriously by fully viewing them as fisheries workers in their own right in both research and policy

Business · Diversification (marketing strategy) · Entrepreneurship · Fishing · Fishing industry · Geography · Invisibility · Narrative · Negotiation · Political science · Scale (ratio) · Social science · Sociology · Entrepreneurship Studies and Influences · Gender Studies · Marketing · Sex work and related issues · Tourism, Volunteerism, and Development

Tools

Open DOIOpen Access