‘The balance is a forever moving one’: Chinese women entrepreneurs’ politics of reinscription when encountering nonhuman agents of control

ABSTRACT

Entrepreneurship is often associated with masculinity as well as symbolic and actual male bodies, which creates discursive and material constraints for women entrepreneurs. This study synthesizes an intersectional reinscription analysis and new materialist approaches to agency to explore 34 mainland Chinese women entrepreneurs’ identity construction or boundary-makings in and beyond their work encounters with various actors. Materializing through participants’ narratives are abstract, intangible ‘ideas/ideals’ that become real ‘things’ capable of stirring/halting/altering women’s entrepreneurial activity, including ‘the feminine,’ ‘family harmony,’ ‘stable job,’ and ‘Chinese traditions.’ Already within and as open-ended relations, these nonhuman agents also get reconfigured in encountering women’s entrepreneurial enactments, whereby situated systems of power (apart from gender and occupation) also arise. Practically, this study maps potential sites of intervention in gendered entrepreneurship ecosystems and highlights cultural, work-life, and political insights shown through participants’ boundary-making practices.

KEYWORDS:

• Women entrepreneurs
• politics of reinscription
• nonhuman agent
• new materialisms
• performativity

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the editor, Dr. Heather Zoller, for her support throughout the publication process, the two caring reviewers for their insightful, constructive feedback, as well as Dr. Ziyu Long for inspiring episodic mentoring moments for and beyond this project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 This and similar metaphors were passed down from planned economy eras; the referenced organizational practices have changed over time.