Probing the power of entrepreneurship discourse: an immanent critique

In lieu of an abstract, here a brief extract from the introduction:

... in this chapter I ask how individuals targeted by the discourse of entrepreneurship either identify with or resist it. This question is investigated in the realm of development aid, a context in which discussions of entrepreneurship and business savvy have acquired increasing prominence over the last decades. Rendering non-governmental organizations (NGOs) the focal attention of this chapter seems timely in view of how these organizations have stirred controversy with regard to their effectiveness and legitimacy (notably in the realm of development aid), which was followed by suggestions to align them more closely with the principles and values of the private sector. Further, investigating the extent to which the normative desideratum of ‘entrepreneurship’ is received by development NGO practitioners bears critical currency in the way it exposes possible limits and dangers associated with this discourse (Ainsworth and Hardy, 2008). However, unlike forms of critique which aspire to challenge the discourse of entrepreneurship from a position of exteriority, for example from the transcendental vantage point of moral philosophy, the present critique is conducted from within the coordinates of the entrepreneurship discourse. Framing it as an ‘immanent critique’ (from Latin immanere, ‘to dwell in, remain in’), I subject the discourse of entrepreneurship to critical scrutiny not via universal judgment of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ but by attending to the viewpoints of those being addressed or ‘hailed’ as entrepreneurs.