The winner of this prize is Abdul-Aziz Dembélé, a PhD student at the University Rennes 2, France. He is currently finalizing his doctoral thesis and expects to submit his thesis in the upcoming 2025-2026 academic year. His award-winning article is titled:
“New Figures in Women’s Entrepreneurship in Sub-Saharan Africa: Dakar Women Entrepreneurs between the Global and the Local.”
The paper is based on fieldwork conducted in Senegal and will be presented at the ISA Forum in Rabat, Morocco. RC 09 congratulates Abdul-Aziz Dembélé for his outstanding achievement.
Abstract
The literature on women’s entrepreneurship in sub-Saharan Africa is characterised by two main figures: that of ‘success’, embodied by the businesswoman involved in transnational trade networks, and that of ‘survival’, illustrated by the trader in the informal economy. Based on a field study conducted in Dakar, Senegal, this paper paints a portrait of fifteen women entrepreneurs. Most of these women have a high level of education and their businesses operate in the formal sector. Using a comprehensive sociological framework, the aim of this paper is to give an account of the subjective meaning that these women give to their entrepreneurial commitment and the ways in which it unfolds. The analysis is divided into two parts. The first looks at the rationale behind their entrepreneurial activities. This part shows that business creation, a complex and multidimensional phenomenon, is expressed by these women through personal dispositions, individual or family aspirations, the discovery of business opportunities and economic constraints. Far from being confined solely to subjective dimensions, the analysis of these women’s entrepreneurial commitment is set in a broader socio-economic context characterised by migratory phenomena, the increased responsibility of women in the household economy, the tightening of conditions of access to employment for young people and the recent pandemic of COVID-19. The second part looks at the economic, cognitive, social and institutional resources on which these women rely to develop their businesses. By showing that a large proportion of these resources are acquired or have been acquired through social trials and institutional selection mechanisms, it will be argued that these women’s entrepreneurial commitment is experienced and expressed as a form of ‘self-affirmation’ in contrast to the public. The implications of the results of this work are discussed both at the level of the academic field, where there is little existing study on these new figures of women’s entrepreneurship in Africa, and at the level of policymaking, where the need to redefine current policies to promote entrepreneurship in Africa will be emphasised.
The Research Committee 09 - Social Transformations and Sociology of Development 