Women and the city: the urban experiences of women entrepreneurs, self-employed women and women-led business in Twist street and surrounds, Hillbrow, Johannesburg.
Date
2019-10-31
Authors
Soudien, Carla Thandi
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Abstract
This dissertation reviews the role of the urban environment in facilitating the economic
empowerment of women, looking, particularly at women entrepreneurs. The study is
framed conceptually using a feminist, post-colonial lens and acknowledges complexity in
relation people’s experiences based on their gender, locality, citizenry, race and class. The
literature review portion of the study considers scholars’ work in the fields of gender,
urbanism and entrepreneurship. The study interrogates overlapping themes in relation to
gendered social hierarchies in the realms of urbanism and entrepreneurship, reviewing both
opportunities and constraints during all phases of the research.
The empirical portion of the study comprises twenty interviews with women business
owners in and around Twist Street in Hillbrow. The interviews included a mapping exercise
in which the respondents depicted their daily movements graphically. In addition to the
interviews, I carried out a mapping audit of the streetscape of three blocks of Twist Street,
between Pretoria and Kapteijn streets. This mapping audit has assisted with understanding
what the range of businesses are being run in this street, how many are run or owned by
women and how many are run or owned by men. The fieldwork study sought to explore the respondents’ everyday experiences related to housing, transportation, support networks, domestic care work, agglomeration and clustering of business types and perceptions of women’s work.
Description
A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment in
fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Urban and Regional
Planning by Research
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Citation
Soudien, Carla Thandi. (2019). omen and the City :the urban experiences of women entrepreneurs, self-employed women and women-led business in Twist Street and surrounds, Hillbrow, Johannesburg. University of the Witwatersrand, https://hdl.handle.net/10539/29343