Women entrepreneurs in Halmahera: quiet contributors

My research focuses on women entrepreneurs in Halmahera, Moluccas, in positioning themselves within the local cultural perspective, and their positive contribution as initiators supporting tourism development. Within a male-dominated social structure, they face challenges running their businesses, but persist in spite of marginalising geographical, economic and cultural conditions. Preliminary data reveals that the patriarchal culture in North Halmahera remain strong but does not eliminate the desire of women entrepreneurs to run their businesses, even though the results are still limited. In addition, they can still position themselves both as entrepreneurs and housewives. Through small businesses initiatives women entrepreneurs contribute to their local community.

This publication was supported by an ANU Gender Institute grant which provided funds for New Mandala and Connecting Designs to run a series of workshops supporting early career academics investigating issues of gender and sexuality in Southeast Asia to develop their audio-visual research communication skills.