跨國代購是一個高度女性化的經濟活動。過去的研究把代購視為一種依循消費者指示、暫時性和被動式的經濟活動，不具備持續性與創造性的創業精神。近年來的主流論述甚至指出，代購行業在全球化和物流科技的進步下，會喪失其中介和橋樑的關鍵角色，從而削弱其成長性，甚至可能導致代購行業的逐漸萎縮或被完全取代。本研究指出，這些觀點與論述雖强調市場與科技變革的重要性，但卻忽視了女性作爲創業主體在代購過程中的專業性與創造性。
本研究聚焦於一些從事韓國代購的臺灣女性經驗，透過她們往返臺灣與韓國東大門之間的代購實踐，去探問臺灣女性在創業過程中，如何協商市場經濟需求與社會性別規範之間的張力，並在此過程中如何應對來自跨國市場、在地消費需求、個人發展與家庭照顧責任之間的多重壓力？
研究方法採用深度訪談與參與觀察，訪談52位韓國代購者，並進行韓國東大門與臺灣女性的參與觀察，分析她們的代購養成過程。透過拼裝（bricolage）概念，呈現代購者在東大門快時尚基礎設施與生產消費機制中，動員社會資源，習得相關知識與技能以及協商性別化創業過程的限制。
透過這些經驗資料的整理與分析，研究發現，臺灣女性對於從事代購的創業精神與實踐是一個性別化過程：（1）整體而言，代購創業的運作是一個性別化的循環過程，行動者透過女性的日常生活經驗與社會網絡，拼裝多元社會資源，並在動機、採購、銷售與顧客回饋等流程中建構出有利於女性的創業風格。（2）透過資源拼裝所創造的性別化創業風格，不僅是商品美學的展現，也是女性在代購市場中確立競爭優勢的行動策略。這種創業風格的發展受到資金、商品等物質資源的影響，同時依賴物流體系、批發市場（檔口）、銷售平台與社群網絡等性別化的社會資源來運作。（3）女性代購者在代購的基礎設施、女性同行、親友與顧客等支持之間建立動態的合作與競爭機制。同時，也必須協調個人親密關係與家庭照顧責任，並在性別框架內發展出兼顧靈活性的買賣專業技能。（4）代購創業並未實質削弱傳統家父長制對女性的約束，而是在性別規範與經濟壓力的雙重夾擊下，女性更努力地拼裝社會資源，為自身創造有限的協商空間，從而鬆動不對等的性別關係去尋求經濟機會與個人發展。
本研究貢獻在於拓展性別與創業的研究議程，透過女性為主體敘事的視角，展現她們在有限資源的條件下，運用東大門快時尚基礎設施進行代購技能的養成，形成以女性網絡為核心的支持與競爭的創業系統。然而，在零工經濟與彈性工時日益普及的勞動趨勢下，代購雖為女性提供相對靈活的工作安排，卻也加深她們在經濟自主與性別規範間的結構性困境。這種彈性並非純粹的自主選擇，而是鑲嵌於傳統性別分工體制，使女性需持續協商市場競爭壓力、個人親密關係與家庭照顧責任，去鬆動性別不平等的社會關係。

Daigou—the transnational practice of purchasing and reselling international products on behalf of customers—has emerged as a significant and highly feminized form of economic activity in East Asia. Existing studies often frame daigou as an informal, temporary labor practice that passively responds to consumer demand, lacking entrepreneurial creativity and long-term viability. Moreover, market-determinist perspectives suggest that technological advancements in e-commerce and logistics will render daigou obsolete. This dissertation challenges these assumptions, arguing that such narratives obscure the entrepreneurial agency and strategic adaptability of women engaged in daigou. Rather than serving as passive intermediaries, daigou practitioners actively reconfigure economic opportunities within gendered labor dynamics and transnational marketplaces.
Focusing on Taiwanese women engaged in daigou in South Korea, this dissertation examines their business activities between Taiwan and Seoul’s Dongdaemun wholesale market. It situates their work within the broader structural contexts of fast-fashion production, cross-border trade, and gendered labor regimes. By tracing how these women navigate market structures while negotiating the gendered social expectations embedded in familial and societal roles, this study contributes to sociological debates on gender, labor, and informal economies in global capitalism. Through this lens, daigou emerges as a site of gendered entrepreneurship, where women exercise agency and adaptability within, rather than in opposition to, structural constraints.
Methodologically, this dissertation employs in-depth interviews and participant observation with 52 Taiwanese daigou practitioners to analyze their entrepreneurial trajectories. Drawing on the concept of bricolage from Anthropology and Cultural Studies—the process of assembling diverse resources to address emerging challenges—this study examines how these women mobilize personal networks, acquire industry-specific knowledge, and navigate logistical obstacles within the transnational trade system of Dongdaemun. Their entrepreneurial strategies encompass managing currency exchange, wholesale procurement, and transnational shipping, while simultaneously balancing caregiving responsibilities and societal expectations. Far from a simple act of reselling, daigou is a dynamic and evolving form of entrepreneurship that demands continuous innovation, adaptability, and resilience.
This dissertation advances four key arguments. First, daigou operates as a gendered entrepreneurial cycle in which practitioners engage in bricolage, leveraging social resources and gendered networks to sustain their businesses. Second, the entrepreneurial style that emerges from bricolage is not merely an aesthetic curation of goods but a strategic practice that enables women to establish competitive advantages in the daigou market. This style is co-constructed through financial, material, and social resources, including digital sales platforms, logistics networks, and wholesale relationships. Third, the acquisition of daigou-related skills reflects a gendered form of professionalization, as women develop expertise in commerce, currency exchange, and supply chain management while balancing family obligations. Finally, despite economic precarity and patriarchal gender norms, daigou practitioners actively restructure their work through creative resource recombination, carving out new spaces for economic participation.
This dissertation contributes to sociological research on gender and entrepreneurship by providing a nuanced analysis of how informal economic practices emerge and evolve within the specific cultural and economic contexts of East Asia. Through a female-centered narrative perspective, it illustrates how women, despite limited resources, leverage the fast-fashion infrastructure of Dongdaemun to develop their purchasing agent skills, forming a female-centered entrepreneurial system characterized by both support and competition. However, as gig economies and flexible work arrangements expand, daigou exemplifies how flexible employment options offer women economic opportunities while simultaneously entrenching structural dilemmas between autonomy and gendered labor expectations. This flexibility is not merely an individual choice but is embedded in enduring gendered divisions of labor, requiring women to continuously negotiate market competition pressures, intimate relationships, and caregiving responsibilities in their efforts to challenge and reshape gendered social inequalities.

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