FEMALE ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN THE ROCINHA FAVELA: TRAJECTORIES, WORK, AND SURVIVAL STRATEGIES DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic deepened social and economic inequalities, significantly affecting women entrepreneurs living in peripheral territories. In this context, this study seeks to understand how women entrepreneurs from Rocinha Favela faced the economic, social, and subjective impacts of the pandemic, analyzing the strategies they adopted to maintain their businesses and support their families’ livelihoods. It also investigates the role of community support networks, solidarity relations, and entrepreneurial behavioral characteristics in developing alternatives in response to the crisis. The study is guided by the following question: how did women entrepreneurs from Rocinha mobilize individual and collective resources to address the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and ensure the continuity of their economic activities? The research adopts a qualitative approach, using a case study and semi-structured interviews with eight women entrepreneurs from Rocinha, analyzed through content analysis. The results indicate that entrepreneurship predominantly functioned as an economic survival strategy, combining income generation, adaptability, autonomy, and the mobilization of family and community networks. The experiences analyzed nevertheless show that this autonomy is partial and conditioned by gender, race, class, and territorial inequalities, making it possible to problematize the relationships among individual agency, labor precarization, and neoliberal rationality.