Africa: Entrepreneurship As Resilience – Sudanese Women, Displacement, and the Remaking of Home in Exile
The Sudan War series is a joint collaboration between the Center for Economic, Legal, and Social Studies and Documentation – Khartoum (CEDEJ-K), Sudan-Norway Academic Cooperation (SNAC) and African Arguments – Debating Ideas. Through a number of themes that explore the intersections of war, displacement, identities and capital, Sudanese researchers, many of whom are themselves displaced, highlight their own experiences, the unique dynamisms within the larger communities affected by war, and readings of their possible futures.
Displaced persons are often viewed through the lens of vulnerability, while entrepreneurs are framed as the embodiment of the neoliberal ideal – bold risk-takers driven by profit and financial success. Our encounters with women who had fled the ongoing war in Sudan to a neighbouring country – one that has received a significant number of displaced Sudanese and where they had established various micro- and small businesses – nuanced our understanding of both refugeehood and entrepreneurialism. Their compelling stories, shared with us in October 2024 – 18 months after the war’s onset – unfolded the rich and complex meanings of business ownership in exile. Woven through their words and the daily rhythms of the activities we observed were narratives of resilience and home-making, revealing how entrepreneurship takes on new meanings in the shifting landscapes of displacement.
The relentless war that erupted in April 2023 uprooted families from all walks of life, forcing them to flee with little more than a few clothes and minimal savings. Among the 3.5 million seeking refuge in the region was Maryam’s family, once settled in an upper-middle-class neighbourhood in Khartoum – until the bombs fell and escape became their only option. Arriving in this neighbouring country, in a city she had visited but never imagined living in, they faced the daunting task of rebuilding their lives. Early on, many displaced Sudanese clung to the hope of a swift return, believing the war would last only days or weeks. But as the conflict showed no signs of abating, and the fighting persisted and spread, families were forced to adapt, navigating local restrictions on work and business ownership while struggling to secure a livelihood. To many, remittances from relatives in the Gulf, Europe, or the USA became a crucial lifeline, covering basic needs, as they started to feel the lingering weight of protracted displacement.
According to our research, women disclosed that it seemed more challenging for men to find jobs or start businesses. Their traditional role as breadwinners, deeply embedded in Sudanese tradition and family law, prompted them to look for business opportunities that would generate a decent livelihood for the family – opportunities that often required substantial capital. Faced with limited options, some men even preferred returning to Sudan, leaving their families behind in the host country.
In contrast, Sudanese women are primarily seen as caregivers within the family, and those who work, are legally entitled to keep their income, often exempting those who can afford it from the expectation to financially support the household. These dynamics appeared to open up greater opportunities for women to engage in business activities, as they could start small, some even building their businesses around their caregiving role by establishing home-based ventures.
Sudanese families displaced in the region reside in various locations influenced by economic, social and cultural factors. The women we spoke with came from middle- or upper-middle class backgrounds and had relocated into a few adjacent neighbourhoods defined by their middle-class identity, where a growing local Sudanese diaspora population offered a market for Sudanese products and services. The women’s businesses included restaurants serving traditional Sudanese food, shops selling Sudanese goods, and beauty care salons for skin, hair and henna. Additionally, small businesswomen produced skin and hair products, cosmetics, Sudanese perfumes, bakhoor (Sudanese incense) and art. While some used their networks and social media to sell their products privately, others rented sections in galleries, like the one run by Maryam, or sold their products at the many bazaars organized by other displaced Sudanese in the area. The galleries offer permanent showcases for products crafted in private domestic spaces and are often managed by a woman who holds a work permit. We also spoke with women who organized bazaars and Sudanese fashion shows, as well as one who had founded a Sudanese school.
Coping with loss
For displaced Sudanese women from middle- and upper-class backgrounds, entrepreneurship is more than a means of financial survival – it is a respite from the horrors of war, offering a renewed sense of purpose. Like Maryam, many women found that starting a business became a vital coping mechanism amid their distressing circumstances. The owner of a family run Sudanese restaurant relayed that the business had provided her and other family members with a much-needed source of meaning and purpose while becoming a source of distraction from grief after the overwhelming feelings following the war. Now, she fulfils herself with the daily work that she admits is painstaking and financially draining, but she loves it, and her emotional health has improved.
Running a business has brought tangible health benefits. “I don’t take sleeping pills anymore,” one woman told us, “because I’ve regained balance and opened our Sudanese school”. Similarly, a restaurateur and mother of four shared how, in the beginning, her thoughts were consumed by Sudan and the losses she had endured – it drained her, pulling her away from her children. But the business became an anchor, shifting her focus from grief to the present. She no longer needed sleeping pills, as the daily demands of her business left little room for brooding over the war or worrying about family members still in Sudan. Instead, her priorities now revolved around her children, catering to her customers and growing her restaurant business.
More than just economic ventures, these businesses have become sanctuaries – places where Sudanese women carve out a sense of home in exile. Maryam’s gallery, she told us, is a refuge for women who face discrimination in the host society, a space where they can gather, exchange news and laughter, weaving a sense of community over cups of coffee or tea. The rich, lingering scent of bakhoor wafts through the air, transporting them – if only for a moment – back to the comforting embrace of home.
Maryam describes the gallery as a small Sudan – a home away from home, a haven. Her words echo other women’s stories and underscore the profound role these businesses play in helping them cope with their new reality. They point to how entrepreneurship can transform into a medium of resilience and community building. These women’s businesses, whether home-based or operating through outlets, play a significant role in restoring emotional and psychological equilibrium. They give them hope, purpose, and a yearning for regeneration and expansion – an apparent sign of God that this time of agony and transformation will develop into success and proliferation.
Negotiating class privilege and status
The possibility to open a business as a means of coping with the emotional consequences of war and displacement highlights the privileged position of these women. Although their families were severely impacted by the war in Sudan, losing both income and savings, remittances helped cover basic necessities. The ability to receive remittances often reflects higher pre-displacement wealth levels. These financial support mechanisms serve to alleviate the economic hardships caused by forced migration.
While male family members faced myriad obstacles to securing an income, remittances sustained household expenses. Women’s business revenues, on the other hand, provided a means to purchase additional necessities for themselves and their children. To some, the extra income provided a degree of financial independence and freedom to purchase “luxuries” without straining their family’s limited resources. By luxuries they referred to clothes, perfumes, make-up and costly china, or to be able to go out and socialize with friends. This mirrors their strong wish to reclaim a sense of class identity. Their expenditures were key to their psychological and social care, enhancing a sense of continuity, normalcy and home in a context of violent ruptures with the past. Their ability to retain facets of their pre-war lifestyle through entrepreneurial activity illustrates that class is not just a structural category, but also an embodied phenomenon, indeed one that remains formative in shaping aspirations, self-image, and coping strategies after war and forced mobility.
Class is not a static construct but is negotiated in motion as people cross territorial and cultural borders and boundaries. While labouring hard to maintain a certain class-status, the women also navigated and performed class within their local contexts, at times challenging traditional notions of middle- and upper-class identity. Some engaged in business activities that, in Sudan, were considered inappropriate for women of their class, yet business revenue enabled them to purchase goods that became class signifiers. And although they found themselves financially deprived and had “lost everything”, they were still able to capitalize on classed social networks for remittances, establishing businesses and access to markets.
The Sudanese women’s stories uncover not only the expanded significance business ownership holds in their lives but also the persistent financial dependencies they navigate. Some out-earn their husbands, hinting at newfound independence and shifts in household gender dynamics. However, their reliance on remittances keeps them in a precarious position. Furthermore, their ability to focus on business often rests on the invisible caregiving labour of other women, whose support enables their entrepreneurial pursuits. Yet, beyond financial survival, business ownership in the context of war and displacement emerges as a complex and deeply gendered experience – one that reshapes classed identities and defies simplistic measures of success.
By highlighting the non-economic dimensions of business ownership in displacement, the experiences of Sudanese women enrich academic scholarship on immigrant entrepreneurship. Their case not only sheds light on the often-overlooked entrepreneurial journeys of forcibly displaced individuals but also reveals how business ownership serves as a means of resilience and a strategy for negotiating gender and class status in the host society.
Randa Hamza Ibrahim Gindeel is an Associate Professor of Sustainable Rural Development and the Deputy Vice President for Academic Affairs at Ahfad University for Women, Sudan. She has extensive experience in conflict research, gender studies, and education in displacement contexts. Dr. Gindeel has led various initiatives related to war, migration, and gender dynamics in Sudan and the MENA region, documenting the impact of war on women, livelihoods, and political participation. She has collaborated with international and local organizations, including UN agencies, CEDEJ, USAID, and UNITAMS, focusing on post-conflict recovery, forced displacement, and gender-sensitive policies. A frequent conference speaker, consultant, and trainer, she bridges academia, advocacy, and policy in women, peace, and security efforts.
Ann Cathrin Corrales-Øverlid is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Department of Social Anthropology, University of Bergen, Norway. She specializes in the study of international migration, focusing on migrants’ experiences of changing gender relations, labour informalisation and precarisation, and entrepreneurship in migration and displacement contexts. She has conducted fieldwork across Latin America, North America, the Nordics and Africa. Currently, she is involved in the projects Tackling Precarious and Informal Work in the Nordic Countries (PrecaNord) and Sudan Norway Academic Cooperation (SNAC).
By African Arguments
