Cultural Negotiations of Digital Transformation: Womenpreneurs and Social Media in Rural India’s Domiciliary Enterprises

Abstract

The global expansion of digital ecosystems, particularly social media and communication technologies, is widely positioned as a catalyst for inclusive entrepreneurship. These platforms promise new forms of market engagement, visibility, and networking. However, their design and deployment often reflect logics that privilege formal, urban, and male-dominated entrepreneurial models, for women engaged in domiciliary enterprises, micro-enterprises operated from within the home, such digital transformations remain unevenly realised. This study emphasises how women actively interpret, accommodate and challenge digital expectations within their socio-domestic environments. Doing so positions digital adoption as a continuous process of cultural negotiation. This study further adopts a techno-feminist perspective to interrogate how women entrepreneurs in rural and semi-urban India navigate the affordances and constraints of digital technologies within gendered domestic, cultural, and policy structures. Employing an ethno-narrative methodology, the research explores how digital access is mediated by familial obligations, socio-cultural norms, and policy regimes that frequently overlook the informal labour economy. The findings reveal a complex negotiation between enabling factors, such as mobile connectivity, digital financial tools, and peer support networks, and enduring inhibitors, including digital illiteracy, restricted mobility, and limited awareness of digital governance initiatives. Social media emerges as both an enabler and a barrier: it facilitates entrepreneurial outreach and communication while simultaneously reinforcing structural exclusions. These dynamics demonstrate how digital transformation is not just technological but also culturally embedded and negotiated. In response, the study proposes the Digitally Intervened Domiciliary Womenpreneurship Model, a conceptual framework that reframes digital inclusion not as a purely technical matter, but as a socio-political, cultural and governance issue. By centring the lived experiences of womenpreneurs, the study contributes to broader debates on gender, digital equity, and participatory governance, underscoring the need for inclusive digital ecosystems that recognise and support informal, home-based enterprises.