📄 Abstract
Indigenous and locally embedded knowledge constitutes an important but under-recognised economic resource in rural India. Women frequently possess and reproduce such knowledge through family, community and occupational networks, yet participation in heritage-based production does not necessarily translate into entrepreneurship, enterprise ownership or control over value capture. This paper develops a conceptual framework for understanding how women may move from artisan participation towards entrepreneurial agency in heritage-based rural economies. Drawing on literature on women’s empowerment, capabilities, entrepreneurship, indigenous knowledge, handicrafts and sustainable livelihoods, the paper proposes a Heritage-to-Enterprise Framework that connects heritage knowledge with knowledge agency, opportunity recognition, innovation and adaptation, value addition, market agency, entrepreneurial control, value capture, women’s economic agency and sustainable livelihoods. It identifies an artisan–entrepreneur gap, referring to the distance between women’s capacity to create value through skilled production and their capacity to control and capture value through enterprise activity. The framework is contextualised through six heritage-based domains relevant to Sivaganga district of Tamil Nadu: palm-leaf products, Chettinad textiles, traditional foods, brass and metal work, Manamadurai pottery and Athangudi tiles. These domains are proposed as fields for future empirical investigation rather than as evidence of established women-led enterprises. Seven research propositions are developed to guide subsequent field research. The paper argues that women’s participation in heritage production should not be equated with entrepreneurship unless women exercise meaningful control over productive resources, enterprise decisions, markets, risks and income. The framework provides a basis for examining how heritage knowledge can be transformed into sustainable enterprise and greater economic agency without reducing cultural heritage to a purely commercial resource.
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📚 How to Cite:
Dr. B. Dharmalingam , FROM ARTISAN TO ENTREPRENEUR: A HERITAGE-TO-ENTERPRISE FRAMEWORK FOR WOMEN’S ECONOMIC AGENCY IN RURAL TAMIL NADU , Volume 14 , Issue 9, October 2026, International Journal of Indian Economic Light(JIEL) , Pages: 1 - 11 , DOI: https://doi.org/10.36713/epra29105