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Reframing Entrepreneurial Embodiment in Women’s Entrepreneurship

Activity: Talk or presentation typesOral presentation

Description

This research paper reframes entrepreneurial embodiment in the existing literature of women’s entrepreneurship, using veiling as a core element of investigation, where limited research has been undertaken to find the association of veiling with entrepreneurial embodiment. Seventeen marginalised Muslim women entrepreneurs were selected from Pakistan, where women face significant cultural and religious restrictions. We contribute to the existing literature of women’s entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial embodiment in a number of ways. Our first contribution is to unpick the assumptions underlying the issue of veiling and unveiling as a matter of embodiment and disembodiment in entrepreneurship. Using light-touch essentialist assumptions, we make a second contribution by positioning opportunities arising from the negotiation of agency in context as consistent as actualized opportunities with reference to stakeholders whilst not being entirely constrained by them. We offer exposition as to how Muslim women entrepreneurs actualise their interpretations of veiling in Islam and make sense of their entrepreneurial endeavours within the context of adverse socio-cultural barriers and masculine stereotypes. Third, by positioning actualized opportunities arising from the negotiation of agency in context, the paper proposes a new term, 'situational embodiment', to the limited body of work considering entrepreneurial embodiment as practice and as a means of actualizing opportunities in a constrained context.
Period16 Jun 202619 Jun 2026
Event titleEURAM Annual Conference 2026: Navigating High Waters: Managing in an Age of Disruption
Event typeConference
Conference number2026
LocationKristiansand, NorwayShow on map
Degree of RecognitionInternational