Purpose This study examines the questions “how do entrepreneurs operating in slums make sense of their environment?” and “how do entrepreneurs view entrepreneurship as emancipating?” This study extends research on social imaginary which represents how people make meanings and structures that guide individual and collective actions and values in the society. Design/methodology/approach Based on qualitative method, data were gathered using semi-structured interviews with 42 entrepreneurs and community leaders from Abuja slums of Nigeria. Through thematic analysis involving coding and recoding, 8 grounded first-order codes and 3 abductively derived second-order codes were identified. Findings The findings reveal two forms of entrepreneuring in the slums – individual and community-oriented (collective) entrepreneurship. This article proposes that social imagination of slum entrepreneurs is bound by situational conditions and emancipatory entrepreneuring may be driven by individual and collective aspirations and values. Entrepreneurs operating in slums create shared empowerment through collective emancipation, social and community embeddedness. Research limitations/implications This article makes three key contributions to knowledge: proposing an empirically derived proposition of social imaginary of emancipation and entrepreneurship, responding to calls to bring indigenous voices to the forefront and adding to knowledge on slum entrepreneurship. Originality/value Few studies examine social imaginary of emancipatory entrepreneuring from the context of the slum environment. This article contributes to advancement of United Nations – Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 1 (No poverty), 10 (Reduced inequalities) and 11 (Sustainable cities and communities).
Igwe et al. (2025) studied this question.