Female enterprise on a transnational border: the entrepreneurial agency of an East Icelandic businesswoman, Pálína Waage (1864–1935)

Abstract

ABSTRACT The aim of this article is to contribute to the historical discussion of women entrepreneurs. It demonstrates that in Iceland, historical research on this theme has been scarce. The special focus of this article is to analyse the entrepreneurial agency of an East Icelandic female businesswoman, Pálína Waage (1864–1935), against this background. Based on her autobiography, diaries, and other local accounts, we analyse Pálína’s work and life trajectory in the context of the transnational town of Seyðisfjörður where she operated. We propose that Pálína possessed, in her local context, social and symbolic capital as an entrepreneur, as understood by French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. However, Pálína’s subject and agency has been silenced by factors such as the restricted financial authority of married women at the time, sociohistorical data, and the masculine discursive formation of the term ‘entrepreneur’ in the Icelandic context. It is proposed that Pálína’s female entrepreneurial agency was transgressive given these historical circumstances. It is also suggested that local history may help make entrepreneurial subjects, such as Pálína, visible. However, the question of whether Icelandic national history and the history of women and gender offer such possibilities is a topic for future research.