Vulnerable Entrepreneurship and Artisan Resilience in Lubumbashi: A Grounded Theory of Copper and Malachite Trajectories Between Precarity, Dignity and Adaptation

This study explores entrepreneurial dynamics in the informal sector of copper and malachite art crafts in Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). It seeks to understand how artisans manage to construct sustainable professional trajectories despite precarity, lack of institutional recognition, and economic instability. Adopting an inductive perspective, the study employs Grounded Theory to generate conceptual categories from the field, capable of explaining artisans’ logics of action and resilience. The methodological approach is qualitative and ethnographic, combining semi- structured interviews with storytelling. This posture prioritizes the meanings that actors themselves attribute to their experiences, progressively building an interpretative framework rooted in empirical data. Findings reveal eleven structuring dimensions, including initial motivations, structural constraints, flexible organizational forms, intergenerational transmission, symbolic recognition, and the mobilization of economic, social, cultural, and identity resources. Craftwork thus emerges as a space of resistance, dignity, and cultural valorisation, beyond its economic function. In response to artisans’ persistent vulnerability, the study proposes an integrated model for strengthening entrepreneurial resilience in the craft sector, structured around five key axes: flexible formalization, economic securitization, social reinforcement, cultural recognition, and openness to frugal innovation.