I would like to acknowledge and pay respect to the past, present and future Traditional Custodians and Elders of this nation and the continuation of cultural, spiritual and educational practices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. I recognise the inherent value of Indigenous Australian perspectives to the University of Canberra and the continuing contributions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander academics to research and education across this nation and around the world.
Making it visible: A feminist data visualisation exploring the lived experiences and profitability of Australian creative women in business
Are you an Artist, Craft Practitioner or Designer in Australia?
I am studying creative women in business in my PhD research. Follow my Instagram account to keep up with progress as I conduct my analysis and share my insights!
The 4 phases of this study
1
Online Survey
2
Data analysis
(Current Phase)
3
data visualisation
4
add your story
Aim of the Study
In this study I aim to explore how we might make visible women’s experience of creative business in Australia, through feminist data visualisation. I hope to de-centre the dominant narratives and re-centre women who have previously been at the margins of entrepreneurship research.
Research Questions
The central question that this project asks is:
How can feminist data visualisation be used to make visible the lived experiences of women Makers in micro-business, and what insights emerge from this process?
Questions that are consequently asked are:
RQ1. What do the lived experiences of women Makers in Australia reveal about their business practices, outcomes, and implicit beliefs?
RQ1a. What patterns can be observed in financial outcomes, support networks, demographics, psychographics, educational backgrounds and domestic/caring responsibilities?
RQ1b. How do participants describe their own challenges in business and approaches to profitability?
RQ1c. What implicit beliefs or personal narratives are evident in their accounts?
RQ2. How can feminist data visualisation principles be applied to represent these findings, and what knowledge emerges through this practice-led process?
RQ2a. In what ways can design decisions make participants’ voices and contexts visible alongside quantitative data?
RQ2b. How do principles such as care, reflexivity, and embodiment influence the design process and outcomes?
RQ2c. What insights or challenges arise when reflecting critically on the creative output as feminist research?
Research approach and methods
The Academic Version
Over the past thirty years, women’s participation in business has grown significantly, with many establishing creative micro-enterprises. Among these are artists, designers, and craft practitioners – collectively referred to as Makers – who represent a vital yet under-researched segment of the entrepreneurial landscape. Despite this growth, profitability outcomes for women in creative micro-businesses remain consistently below national averages and below those of men, reflecting a persistent gendered income disparity. Dominant discourses of entrepreneurship, grounded in traditional business metrics and education, rarely capture the nuanced ways women experience and practice business as part of their lives. Too often these narratives frame women in terms of deficits or lacks, overlooking the diverse strategies and values and underpin their work.
This practice-led, feminist mixed-method study seeks to re-centre those at the margins by exploring the lived experiences of women Makers in Australia. Informed by feminist standpoint theory and data feminism, it treats women’s embodied knowledge as valid and valuable, and emphasises care, reflexivity, and equity in both data collection, analysis and representation. The project investigates patterns and links between lived experience, profitability outcomes, and systemic barriers, making visible connections that might offer pathways toward addressing income disparities and supporting women’s economic sustainability.
Central to this research is the use of data visualisation as both a method of analysis and mode of representation. Rather than reducing narratives to simplified metrics, the visualisations are designed to embrace ambiguity, highlight emotional and contextual nuance, and challenge dominant assumptions of entrepreneurship and creative labour. Through this visually driven approach, the project contributes to feminist knowledge-making by amplifying and centring the often-overlooked experiences, values, and strategies of creative women in business.
What I’m doing
The Human Version
I believe your stories matter. To better understand why and how women in creative micro-businesses make money (or struggle to) I want to hear about your day-to-day experiences, how you see yourself as a business owner, and how this shapes the choices you make. I’ll then explore how these lived experiences connect with profitability, as well as the social and systemic barriers that can stand in the way. Through this, I hope to show not just where challenges lie, but also the strategies, values, and strengths that women bring to their businesses.
To make these connections visible, I’ll be using data visualisation, not to reduce your stories to numbers, but to highlight the nuance, context, and emotion within them. My aim is to shine a light on the realities of creative women in business, so that we can better understand what supports financial sustainability and how those supports might be expanded to benefit women across the Maker community.
What we know
As part of the preliminary research for this study, I have looked at the exisiting literature on a range of topics, including the areas outlined in the following list.
Women in Business
Push / Pull Factors
Access to finance, risk aversion and start-up costs
Gender differences in Financial Outcomes
The effect of COVID-19 on women in business
What is Financial Success?
Family Factors and Equality
A solid foundation isn’t always enough
A more holistic approach to business education
Does Australia value Makers?
Implicit beliefs and achievement
What is needed
I am studying creative women in business in my PhD research. Follow my Instagram account to keep up with progress as I conduct my analysis and share my insights!
The Researcher
Mikaela Danvers
Mikaela is a design teacher and creative business mentor with comprehensive experience in graphic & web design, creative entrepreneurship and delivering engaging and effective training sessions across these areas. Skilled in brand identity, brand strategy and product development, Mikaela is interested in researching the creative micro-business sector and the lived experiences of creative women. She has also played soccer for 27 years, competes in ACT Masters Athletics and has two young children.
Mikaela has been involved in the Canberra Creative Industries micro-business sector for over 15 years. She has connections with a large network of creatives across Australia through publishing a podcast “The Business of Making”, and specifically in Canberra through running business workshops for Artists, Craft Practitioners and Designers for several years, guest-speaking for the YWCA SheLeads program, as well as participating in craft markets since 2010. She has facilitated collaborative projects between university students and creative industry partners through her previous role as Discipline Lead of Visual Communication Design at the University of Canberra. In 2021 Mikaela lead a Venture Studio start-up unit for entrepreneurial students in the creative industries at the University of Canberra. She is undertaking her PhD exploring the lived experiences of creative women in micro-business, looking specifically at profitability and what services or support is needed for women in this sector.
Information
Principal Investigator: Mikaela Danvers | Faculty Advisor: Dr Jee Young Lee
This research is approved by the University of Canberra Human Research Ethics Committee
For more information please contact: Mikaela.Danvers@canberra.edu.au