Submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Humanities School of Social Sciences Department of Anthropology, University of the Witwatersrand, August 2017 / This study engages with recent works on entrepreneurship and microfinance in the
developing world as it seeks to understand youths’ interactions with microfinance
initiatives in a specific African context. Using the case of urban Dar es Salaam in
Tanzania, I apply the theory of value to question the notion that ‘entrepreneurship’
can be separated from other aspects of cultural and social lives in the community. By
providing business grants and entrepreneurship training, microfinance institutions
assume that youth from poor backgrounds will also be able to start their own business,
sustain it and succeed financially. However, this relationship is not well established
and need to be further explored empirically and ethnographically. Through
ethnographic observation of three material sites, namely family, market, and the
project that provided a business grant to 52 secondary school graduates, I look at how
youth, as potential entrepreneurs in the context of limited access to formal education
and employment in urban areas, make choices on the use of money in relation to
entrepreneurship investments, daily livelihoods, and future plans.
The general framework that informs youth entrepreneurship programs posits that the
lack of capital, skills, business knowledge and poor policy framework explains, to a
larger extent, why business ventures are not successful among youth living in poverty.
However, this research indicates that family dynamics, youth aspirations, belief
systems, and nature of interventions programs are factors that influence youth
engagements with entrepreneurship and the outcome of their business ventures. / XL2018
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:wits/oai:wiredspace.wits.ac.za:10539/24503 |
| Date | January 2017 |
| Creators | Mgumia, Jacqueline Halima |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | Online resource (iv, 441 leaves), application/pdf, application/pdf |
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