Entrepreneurship and Precarity Among Kenyan Young People

• In Event: Precarious Work and Workers

Abstract

Most theoretical and empirical research on entrepreneurship in Africa focuses on two extremes: desperation entrepreneurship in severely impoverished settings and startup founders who aspire to become the next ‘African Unicorn.’ While these archetypes are crucial to study, they do not capture the nuances of some young African people's relationship with entrepreneurship and precarity. Using participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and digital ethnography, this article presents two contrasting archetypes of Kenyan young people use entrepreneurship to navigate precarity. The first archetype is the heropreneur—a high-achieving Kenyan young person who becomes an entrepreneur to address structural causes of precarity for others, in addition to themselves. The second archetype is the hustlerpreneur—a Kenyan young person who becomes an entrepreneur to stave off their own immediate precarity in a shrinking middle-class labor market. This research offers insights into how young people perceive their opportunity structure and adapt accordingly. Through understanding how middle-class Kenyan young people identify with entrepreneurship, we can gain insights into how they also contend with precarity.

Author

• Shaquilla Harrigan, University of West Georgia