In the academic literature resource dependent communities have been characterized as principally economic spaces that evolved relative to their socio-economic dependence on a single resource-based industry. Subsequently, as industry restructuring and closure has effected community transition, research emphasis has shifted to the emergence of alternative economic futures for these places. Currently, economic and social renewal in resource dependent communities is typified by sets of locally based strategies that rely on the participation of all community members.
However, as recent research positions local actors as catalysts for socio-economic development, very little research has been dedicated to exploring the multiple roles and contributions women make to their households and broader community. By extension, the organization of women's economic lives, particularly in terms of self-employment, has been absent from the discourses surrounding community transition and resilience.
In response, my research is rooted in place-based change as a means of highlighting how self-employed women have made use of place-based resources to structure their livelihood strategies. Using personal observation and semi-structured, open-ended interviews with 13 women in Gold River, BC, the purpose of my research was to demonstrate how self-employed women simultaneously shape and are shaped by place. In turn, I demonstrate that women pursue self-employment as a means of fulfilling their requirements for paid work, personal fulfillment, and the flexibility to maintain household and community responsibilities. In the process, self-employed women have made unique contributions to community well-being and to the evolution of place-based identity.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uvic.ca/oai:dspace.library.uvic.ca:1828/2359 |
| Date | 15 March 2010 |
| Creators | Dalton, Lindsay Paige |
| Contributors | Dolan, A. H., Smith, D. J. |
| Source Sets | University of Victoria |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | Available to the World Wide Web |
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