Ethnic Entrepreneurship Among Indian Women in New Zealand: A Bittersweet Process

This research article explores the lived‐in and lived‐through experiences of Indian women entrepreneurs in New Zealand in the context of ethnic entrepreneurship. Through a four‐stage model emerging from qualitative interviews, the article illuminates the bittersweet entrepreneurial process of ethnic minority migrant women. The four stages are: the low permeability for entry into the job market for ethnic minority migrant women; underemployment; setting up a micro‐enterprise and expanding the business and creating employment for others, primarily co‐ethnics as well as an expanding customer base. A combination of factors ranging from perceived discrimination, low self esteem and feelings of being devalued, to ethnic networks and lack of access/knowledge of government resources and the entry of women from Indian business families feed into each of the four stages of this model. The article offers an analysis of minority voices, along with implications for future research.     

Professional Migrant Women Decentring Otherness: A Transnational Perspective

Embraced by their ethnicity and gender many migrant women have negotiated their own spaces in the host country. Yet, much of the literature on migrant women focuses on those who are struggling to make ends meet with low levels of education and how this defines the construction of the Other. We contribute to the limited scholarship in management research on professional migrant women by illustrating how transnational processes play out in the lived experience of professional migrant Indian women in New Zealand, and how they invoke agency in decentring Otherness. This qualitative study foregrounds the navigation of asymmetrical power relations and the strategic deployment of ethnicity, education and caste affiliation, when confronted with processes of exclusion in the labour market. We argue for the need to highlight narratives of professional migrant women which reflect the agency and articulation of their voices, thus reworking notions of the Other in transnational space.     

The effects of environmental stressors on the mortality of the oldest old male population in Hong Kong, 1977–2006

Although age–sex-specific mortality rates were decreasing over the years, such a trend was not observed for the male population aged 85 or above (the oldest old) in Hong Kong. Despite literature suggesting that environmental stressors were associated with higher mortality, the adverse effects of socioeconomic and political events were seldom included. Hence, this study explored the relationship between environmental stressors covering adverse weather conditions as well as key socioeconomic and political events and fluctuations in the oldest old mortality rates in Hong Kong during the period 1977 to 2006. The oldest old mortality rates in Hong Kong were observed to have a likelihood of being associated with these environmental stressors. Furthermore, men appeared to be more susceptible to these risk factors than did women. More care and attention should be given to the oldest old men, in particular, during periods of socioeconomic or political upheavals. A cohort study would be useful to study these stressors in greater detail.     

Strange Tempest: Agency, Poststructuralism, and the Shape of Feminist Politics to Come

This essay explores Judith Butler's influence on feminist and gender studies at two levels. First, the essay examines Butler's specific theoretical contributions with special attention to the performativity of gender and the conception of agency connected with it. It highlights the contributions and limitations of Butler's account of agency and the ongoing feminist conversation that it has incited. Second, this essay explores how Butler's account of agency has unsettled feminist conceptions of established political practice and sketches how specific responses to Butler's work provide clues to key contested issues. The essay closes with a brief look at feminist scholarship that draws together Butler-informed political visions with traditional accounts of feminist political practice in a manner that foreshadows a dynamic feminist politics yet to come.