« Economic Woman » ?
Anthropologists have long been fascinated with different forms of circulation. This article, based on field research in three Taiwanese indigenous villages, looks at the meaning of circulation to women shopkeepers. Rather than identifying themselves as entrepreneurs, most of them perceive themselves as contributing to their families and communities. Unlike the Han Chinese, they can refer to a history in which women owned property gained from their own labour and had social power. Women shopkeepers continue to gain social and political power from their work in circulation, especially due to the political dimensions of their shops in village space. Profit is by no means the primary motive of their business activities, and their work continues to be embedded in a wider social and political context.