Going global – going digital. Diaspora networks and female online entrepreneurship in Khartoum, Sudan

Abstract

The link between transnational migration and new information and communication technologies (ICTs) is of crucial importance for the way small-scale entrepreneurs in African cities capitalize on development. In Khartoum, well-educated women increasingly start businesses through digital mediation (communication mediated through digital devices such as networked computers and smartphones) by making use of social media platforms to develop digital communities and to sell typical female consumer goods, including cosmetics, garments, fashion accessories and perfumes. Although these bottom-up practices of e-commerce start as local in outlook and only partially materialize in the digital space, they have become important game changers in an environment where Sudanese entrepreneurs are often excluded from the world economy due to conventional gender norms and economic restrictions and sanctions. Through Sudanese business partners in the diaspora, some female entrepreneurs in Khartoum have built a network of transnational relationships that supplies them with international products for their online sales in Khartoum. Other female entrepreneurs benefit from the growing Sudanese diaspora to expand their area of operation and to sell their traditional perfumes, cosmetics and tiyab to an international public. It is argued that global digital connections offer a new dimension on how small-scale entrepreneurs in African cities could capitalize on transnational migration, which could provide new opportunities for improved well-being and bottom-up development. As such, the article makes an original contribution to debates about ICT for development, female entrepreneurship and changing practices of cross-border trade in the digital age.