Labouring women, enterprising States – A research study on women, information technology and narratives of entrepreneurship(Draft)

This research study, carried out by IT for Change in partnership with Dr. Lisa McLaughlin from Miami University,Ohio (United States), explores the structural-institutional facets of the relationship between women entrepreneurs, ICTs and the mainstream discourse on entrepreneurship. The study was carried out in the states of Karnataka and Kerala- representing two contrasting ICT ecosystems - the former dominated by big private players and the latter dominated by a welfarist state.

The means by which dominant macro-economic development thinking has appropriated poor women's collective enterprise as a tool for poverty alleviation, through a neo-liberal ideology of empowerment, is one of the key findings of our research.