Relational configuration of agentic capabilities, collective political capacity, and epistemic justice in Colombian women entrepreneurs

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Juliana Tabares Quiroz https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7444-9922
Ledy Gómez-Bayona https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4122-0344

Keywords

Abstract

This article aims to analyze the configuration of agency capacity, political capacity, and epistemic justice among women entrepreneurs participating in a local interinstitutional training process. A participatory action research study was conducted within a program implemented in a municipality in Antioquia, Colombia, involving 129 women entrepreneurs at different stages of entrepreneurial maturity: pre-incubation, incubation, and acceleration. The findings indicate that women’s agency capacity is manifested in their decisions to pursue entrepreneurship and engage in the training process, as well as in their ability to identify business needs and possible courses of action, leading to decision-making, action, and reflection. Political capacity is evident in practices of cooperation and network building, and in the articulation among the university, government, and entrepreneurial actors as a source of collective infrastructure for territorial development. Epistemic justice is observed when women entrepreneurs recognize their knowledge as valid, interpret and name previously invisible experiences, and acquire legitimacy to speak about them. The study proposes a comprehensive model of capability configuration in which agency is understood as a situated capacity, training as a conversion infrastructure, and epistemic justice as a principle of governance. This framework makes it possible to identify how the training strategy generates processes of individual, collective, and territorial transformation.

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