Indigenous knowledge systems as a catalyst for women’s entrepreneurship in Africa: Feminist political economy perspective

Abstract

Through feminist political economy theory, this paper intends to explain how Indigenous
Knowledge Systems (IKS) is practiced as a catalyst for women’s entrepreneurship in Africa.
Despite that the IKS has drawn more attention from African scholars, there is still limited attention
given to IKS and women’ entrepreneurship in Africa. At the same time, no study to date has been
found which clearly explain the IKS as a driver for women’s entrepreneurship in Africa especially
through the feminist political economy perspective. It is for that reason this paper intends to
contribute to this gap of knowledge and situate IKS as a driver for women’s enterprise within a
theoretically grounded framework. About research methodology, the paper relied on extensively
secondary sources as a means of collecting relevant and required data, it also employed strict
textual analysis to explain how the IKS has become the driver for women’s enterprise in Africa
through the feminist political economy theory. The paper shows that despite the contribution of the
IKS-based entrepreneurship, women are still being affected by the lack of access to resources and
opportunities. Moreover, there is a challenge of power relations and control over indigenous
knowledge as well as the institutional constraints. Hence, the paper firstly, recommends the
integration of IKS into women’s entrepreneurship initiatives, ensuring access to funding, training,
and markets that are culturally relevant and context specific. Lastly, the community-based support
structure is needed to improve women through inclusive governance and capacity building
initiatives.