Methodological Approaches to Analysing Women's Social Commerce Platforms and Emergent Governance in Kampala's Informal Sector (2010-2025)

This methodology article addresses a critical gap in frameworks for analysing how digital social commerce platforms facilitate new, women-led governance structures within Africa’s informal economies. Focusing on Kampala’s marketplaces, it critiques the inadequacy of conventional business or digital studies approaches for capturing the culturally-embedded leadership emerging from these spaces. The article proposes a novel, feminist digital ethnography that integrates longitudinal platform data analysis with participatory action research (PAR). This mixed-methods approach was developed collaboratively with women’s trader associations and combines semi-structured interviews with discourse analysis of platform interactions (e.g., WhatsApp groups) to map evolving decision-making hierarchies and conflict-resolution mechanisms. Its preliminary application demonstrates that these platforms are not merely transactional tools but vital spaces for constructing collective authority, resource-pooling protocols, and advocacy strategies, thereby formalising governance from below. The significance of this work lies in its provision of a rigorous, replicable, and African-centred methodological framework that privileges women’s agency and contextual knowledge. It equips researchers and policymakers with robust analytical tools to understand and support these organic, digitally-enabled governance models, contributing to more equitable economic development strategies that recognise women’s leadership in shaping the future of the informal sector.