West African Women Entrepreneurs in a Glocal World

More African women than men become entrepreneurs, with women often balancing time caring for their households with small enterprises such as setting up shops in front of their homes, renting market stalls, or setting up hairstyling businesses.

This book considers these micro-level instances of entrepreneurship, as well as cases of more established high-status entrepreneurs, to build a picture of women entrepreneurs in West African societies, and their wider role in socio-economic development. Small and medium enterprises are seen as agents of change in the global south, vital for job creation and poverty reduction, but women often face barriers which hinder their entrepreneurial success, such as lack of funding, useful networks, or inhibitive gender stereotypes. This book highlights cases of gender and economic success, to demonstrate the significant potential of the female economy to generate progress and change.

This book will be an important read for students and researchers of entrepreneurship, business, gender, development, and economic sociology in Africa.

Ulrike Schuerkens studied at the Universities of Cologne (Germany) and Rennes (France). She has doctorates in both sociology, and social anthropology and ethnology, from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris. She received the diploma Habilitation à diriger des recherches from the University Paris V - René Descartes. Currently, she is a professor of sociology at the University Rennes 2, France. She taught in the master and PhD programme of the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris, France. She also taught as a lecturer at the University Lille 3 (France) and Humboldt University, Berlin (Germany). She was a visiting professor at the Universities Paris 1 and Paris V, the University of Cologne (Germany), Rouen Business School, Université Cheikh Anta Diop in Dakar (Senegal) and others. Ulrike Schuerkens has served for many years in different functions as a member of the board of the Research Committee on Social Transformations and Sociology of Development, RC 09 of the International Sociological Association. She is on the editorial board of several international journals. She has published extensively on globalization, glocalisation, socio-economic development, social change, transnational migrations, multiculturalism, and colonialism. Her latest monographs are Entreprises, entrepreneurs et travail au Sénégal, Pour une sociologie du management en Afrique et dans le monde arabe, Social Changes in a Global World, Soziale Transformationen und Entwicklung(en) in einer globalisierten Welt, Global Management, Local Resistances (ed., Routledge, 2014), The socio-economic Outcomes of the Global Financial Crisis (ed., Routledge, 2012), Globalization and Transformations of Social Inequality (ed., Routledge, 2010), Globalization and Transformations of Local Socio-Economic Practices (ed., Routledge, 2008), Transnational Migrations and Social Transformations, Global Forces and Local Life-Worlds: Social Transformations, Changement social sous régime colonial: Du Togo allemand aux Togo et Ghana indépendants, Transformationsprozesse in der Elfenbeinkueste und in Ghana.