The Sasin Research Seminar series continues with an insightful look at female entrepreneurship by Professor Séverine Le Loarne – Lemaire from the Grenoble Ecole de Management. The professor is a representative of France for the OECD Global WEP – Women Entrepreneurship Program) and also the head of the FERE Research Chair. The talk was on ‘Women Entrepreneurship in deprived Economic Zones’ and included a look at other related and ongoing research. The lecture began with an overview of the professor’s previous research axis and the three research axes over the last 20 years. These included: Individual action & emancipation within organizations; Women Entrepreneurship – Entrepreneurship as emancipation; and Practices for impacting (with a focus on women entrepreneurs). She then gave an overview of the primary FERE missions and action-based research. The first mission involved delivering contextualized methods to Women Nascent Entrepreneurs in deprived economic zones. The second identified how context unables knowledge transfer from the ‘educated and wealthy’ field to the ‘less and economically deprived’. She also explained how the research is conducted and the data shared. Next, the professor talked about three papers she was currently working on. The first was: How women, across contexts, generate their own entrepreneurial performativity. Initiating a dialogue between the EAP Approach & Butler (currently under review). The second asked: Skills provided by Incubators: How does context matter? The final one was: Colonializing Entrepreneurial Practices? Some considerations on the practices of Incubations. This was followed by a discussion and insight into these three papers. There was an overview of aspects such as Entrepreneurship in Practice, questioning the role of context in the identity of an entrepreneur, and an explanation of ‘Praxis vs Practice’. Professor Le Loarne explained the research design and presented a comparison of longitudinal cases. These cases consisted of women in different contexts under three headings: Cluster, Remote place but healthy economic zone, and Deprived economic zone. She discussed six sample cases – three of well-perceived performativity and three of non-well perceived performativity. The research involved recorded interviews, observations, and meetings and resulted in a series of vignettes. She then explained and discussed the findings and results of the research. This included a discussion of individual cases, the vignettes, and a look at the broader picture. The research led to a discussion relating to further questions. The first asked what matters – deprived economic zone or formal entrepreneurial experience? The second questioned gender and intersubjectivity and gender practices. This was followed by a lively Q&A session. The look into the ongoing research of Professor Séverine Le Loarne – Lemaire was fascinating and insightful, and the post-talk discussion covered a variety of related issues. In response to the questions and suggestions, Professor Le Loarne first looked at the difference between being deprived and living in a deprived area. There is the idea that someone can be well educated and have money but come from a deprived area. She pointed out that those living in deprived economic zones aren’t necessarily deprived. There was also a discussion on the literature and approaches to pitching, including the differences between Butler and Foucault and how they relate to the work. The topic of entrepreneurship as emancipation was also touched upon. Another question asked about the differences in female versus male fundraising in Asia – although the professor thought it a challenging topic and pointed out the vastness of the region. Another question related to how women entrepreneurs can get more funding generally.