infonet-economy

This article introduces ‘destituent entrepreneurship’ as a way of imagining the political thrust of entrepreneurship under conditions of crisis. Taking its cues from Giorgio Agamben’s work on destituent power, and from theories of prefigurative praxis by other thinkers, this analysis uses the occupied-enterprise movement in Argentina as an illustrative case to cultivate sensitivity for the more radical possibilities of entrepreneurship as they emanate from the free-floating conflictual energy at the heart of society. Specifically, refracting destituent entrepreneurship into its essential components, we highlight, first, how laid-off workers redefined themselves as resistant entrepreneurs who counter-acted the fraudulent close-down of their enterprises by reclaiming their right to work. Second, we point out how the reclaimed enterprises created new opportunities not only for creating income, but for prefiguring post-capitalist realities rooted in self-organized and dignified work, democratic decision-making and the creation of a common people. The key contribution this article makes is to alert us to how entrepreneurship under conditions of crisis is less a matter of necessity alone, i.e. making a living in hard times, but an opportunity to redefine the realm of economic practice by one’s own rules.

INTRODUCTION

The present contribution comprises, most generally expressed, an interest in the concept of ‘reflexivity' and its potential to radicalize the business school. Departing from the observation that notions of ‘reflexivity' and ‘reflection' in their ubiquitous use have taken on variegated shadings, I will begin this paper by highlighting those interpretations which envision (and thereby prescribe) reflexivity as the kind of practice that seeks to disclose the author's intentions, assumptions, ideologies, etc., so as to make a particular piece of writing, respectively its meaning, more accessible. Illustrating this argument on behalf of qualitative research, I will delineate that this exegesis of reflexivity operates to portray the author as a purposeful persona who exhibits a linear, agentic and hierarchical relationship with the respective text, and who is thus envisaged as being in charge of its meaning. The aim of this paper then is to scrutinize this image of reflexivity by calling into question if such ‘confessional tales' make (qualitative) research more authentic, not to say credible. To this end, I will pinpoint some of the basic root assumptions of this stream of arguing in order then to suggest an alternative meaning of reflexivity, that is, one that takes reading and text, and not the author, as its center of gravity. In so doing, I will first introduce excerpts of Derrida's work on literature as well as Barthes' and Foucault's investigations of the author (function) in order to problematize the idea whereby the intelligibility of a particular utterance or text presupposes laying bare the (ideological) grounding and/or intentional state of its author. Hence, whereas seeking to dissociate the link between text and author as reproduced by proponents of qualitative research, and by accentuating both the significance of the text's context and its reader, I will then get to endorse seeing "reflexivity' as a deconstructive practice. In trying to work out the potential tenets of deconstruction for the business school to come, a brief detour will be taken to display the kind of criticism deconstruction has been subjected to. It will be shown, for instance, that Derrida's deconstructive work has elicited suspicion and severe opposition both in- and outside the context of academic philosophy. In discussing some of the best established and most infamous misperceptions of Derrida and his deconstructive work, it will further be discussed that the matter has often been displayed as a purely theoretical or private endeavor which has no stake in public or "real-life' issues, or as a condemnable since disinterested, nihilistic intellectual exercise. Given the often ignorant, or at least obscure treatment of deconstruction (Critchley, 1999), I will point out, among other things, that deconstruction and (antagonistic) criticism, read: destruction, embody different objectives (Patton & Protevi, 2003) wherefore the two spheres of textual analysis must be apprehended in terms of their dissimilarity. With this in mind, I will "revitalize' deconstruction as an affirmative gesture that acknowledges and respects the work being subjected to analysis. Furthermore, I will depict some of the ethical "aspirations' (Jones, 2003) and yet neglected (political) potentials of deconstruction (Patton, 2003) in order to construe the subject matter as a radical means for "deschooling' (Illich, 1973) the contemporary business school (from within). Proclaiming that the "age of deconstruction' has already dawned in the humanities (Nealon, 2003) but only marginally influenced the realm of business schools, this treatise will then climax in the formulation of the business school without conditions in which deconstruction gets to tower as the epitome of free expression and responsible reflection. By the same token, claiming a space for deconstruction in the business school of the future, I will get to elaborate on the (possible) position and function of deconstruction in educational curricula and on its respective relationship with and merit for prevailing, that is, mainstream theory.

Concurring with Barthes (1967) that no language can ever be ‘non-rhetorical', I spotted an opportunity to illuminate the current enunciation of social entrepreneurship in academic texts, and to delineate how science gets to persuade the audience of the sincerity of its utterances (Watson, 2000). As Michel Foucault (1984) pinpointed, interpretations represent a ‘violent or surreptitious appropriation of a system of rules, which in itself has no essential meaning', but which tries to ‘impose a direction, to bend it to a new will, to force its participation in a different game, and to subject it to secondary rules' (p. 86). By extension thereof, the ensuing investigation will pay prime attention to how texts being deemed ‘academic' are organized so as to rhetorically ward off potential counter-arguments (Billig, 1987; 1989). For the present purpose, I strongly identify rhetoric with Derrida's (1976) deconstructive endeavor in that rhetorical analysis irrevocably entails a sensitivity for the indeterminacy of the sign ‘social entrepreneurship'. In other words, by virtue of highlighting the rhetorical dynamic of the respective texts, I will try to invoke a space for the tactical other of social entrepreneurship, i.e. ‘the residue of indeterminacy which escapes the system' (Sipiora & Atwill, 1990, p. 3). Obviously, instead of grounding social entrepreneurship within a specific theoretical or methodological space, my analysis seeks to evoke a productive crisis, or a ‘rupture' to use Derrida's (1966) wording, in which novel cultural interpretations may become possible. To lay open social entrepreneurship texts' rhetorical dynamic, that is, to expose the binary systems which warrant stability, and to problematize the field's consensus will thus (hopefully) become a transparent strategy for making language the object of its own scrutiny. Following Derrida (1992), it is important to note that this deconstructive reading is not necessarily an exclusively negative act (Critchley, 1999), but rather a response to, and affirmation of, political struggles against systems pledged to presence. As such, the process of dismantling or, more precisely, deconstructing the rhetoric of scholarly texts on social entrepreneurship serves the aim of laying bare the instability of these texts, and to set in motion some creative playfulness. The last part of this chapter is therefore devoted to making suggestions for the prospective research agenda of social entrepreneurship. Regarding the enrichment of the prevailing "regimes of truth', if not to say truisms, I will argue for a proliferation of deconstructive analysis as well as for the endorsement of new representational practices. New groundings of social entrepreneurship will further be advocated with regress to Lyotard's (1984) work on paralogy (i.e. movements which go beyond or against common reason) as well as to Derrida's (1995; 1997; 1999) writing on aporia (i.e. paradoxes) and undecidability.

Version corrigée, après une empreinte tronquée le 25.06.2014, page 14.