The symbiosis between identity and migrant entrepreneurship among Ghanaian women entrepreneurs in South Africa

Abstract

In this article I have attempted to situate entrepreneurial identity in its more comprehensive personal context by tracking cultural transformations and attempting to understand how Ghanaian women entrepreneurs in Durban negotiate their day-to-day social identities. These women entrepreneurs found themselves projecting new identities in unfamiliar social spaces that are neither distinctively Ghanaian nor South African, but are rather a mélange or “in-betweenness” of elements of Ghanaian identity and South African socio-cultural characteristics. Although there is a range of particular attributes that give Ghanaian women entrepreneurs in Durban their specific identity, one needs to remain aware that each of these women supports multiple identities in the course of everyday life. My main interest in this area is in how such women experience and express their sense of belonging as a product of their transnational activities. Using the concept of bounded solidarity and enforceable trust, these women are able to move in and out of identity brackets. In pursuit of this aim I examine how Ghanaian women manipulate multiple identities in the course of entrepreneurial activity.

Keywords: belonging, entrepreneurship, identity, Ghanaian women, culture