Exploring Subsistence Marketplaces Through a Feminist Perspective

Extant literature in the field of subsistence marketplaces adopts a gender-neutral framing of marketplace exchanges despite the overwhelming experience of disadvantage faced by women relative to men as a consequence of patriarchal structures. The authors employ feminist perspectives to render visible constructions of power inequities. First, the authors employ a gendered lens to revisit the topics and data in four published papers in the field of subsistence marketplaces, revealing new questions for future research to answer as well as opportunities to reimagine policy responses. Second, they demonstrate how a gendered analysis was conducted in a primary research study with 21 men and women involved in microfinance programs in rural South India. The findings reveal that gender is a social construction that can be “done and undone,” to transform unequal power relations between men and women in subsistence marketplace exchanges. Several implications for theory and marketing practice are then provided.