Entrepreneurship, discourses and conscientization in processes of regional development

Abstract

This paper is based upon a regional development project in a ‘vulnerable’ Swedish region consisting of three municipalities. At a first glance, this is a region in decline that is lacking in entrepreneurial initiatives. During a crucial time period the project ‘Diversity in Entrepreneurship’ (DiE) was launched to help the region to become more entrepreneurial and inclusive. An underlying logic was built into the project, which is associated with the critical pedagogy of Paolo Freire. From a Freirean perspective regions lacking in entrepreneurship could be reconsidered emphasizing that the entrepreneurial initiatives are always there–latent–however restrained by certain discourses; in this case a dominant enterprise discourse. Above all the enterprise discourse suppresses the ability for particular groups in society to view themselves as entrepreneurs. The purpose of this paper is to introduce Freire's critical pedagogical perspective to entrepreneurship and regional development. An episode illustrating how the enterprise discourse suppresses an equality discourse, introduced by way of the DiE-project, makes the point of departure for discussing the process of ‘conscientization’, which refers to a type of learning that is focused on perceiving and exposing contradictions and to take action against the oppressive elements of reality (Freire 1970). Some key Freirean ideas or concepts are explained, first as they were expressed by Freire and then applied to entrepreneurship and regional development. It is then discussed how these concepts found their expressions in the project. The critical pedagogic perspective not only emphasizes an entrepreneurial potential in every individual, but it also gives an idea of what kind of processes could release entrepreneurial initiatives among those who do not view themselves as entrepreneurs.

Keywords:

• critical pedagogy
• conscientization
• entrepreneurship
• regional development
• discourse.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to express their appreciation to the editor and two referees for well-informed and penetrating comments on earlier drafts of this paper, which have contributed significantly and constructively towards the present text.

Notes

Notes

1.  A Green Paper is an EU document which contains communications published by the European Commission for a specific policy domain.

2.  The concept conscientização is used by Freire (1970) to describe a methodology in which critical reflection of the world emerges into a consciousness of oppressive situations, which makes it possible to intervene in the reality of which we are a part. In Freire's later work (1998), conscientização, which is a Portugese word, has been translated as conscientization, the term which is used in this paper.

3.  Some 58 193 inhabitants live in the KFV according to population statistics at SCB on 1 November 2003.

4.  When entering the project the discourse concept was part of our conscious interpretative repertoire as we were familiar with, for example, the works of Foucault. From the beginning we were not familiar with Freire's ideas but one of us began to study Freire without the idea of making use of it in the context of this research. However, as we got the idea to test Freire's ideas we both started to study Freire. We then found out after a while that a couple of the central stakeholders were very familiar with Freire, for example the person who wrote the project application. Thus Freire's ideas were implicit in the construction of the project although not explicitly stated in any way. We also felt after becoming more familiar with Freire that it helped us to give words to an implicit understanding we somehow intuitively shared or began to identify with.

5.  Discourse is a broad interdisciplinary approach within social sciences which involves many different perspectives and fields of investigation (Potter and Wetherell 1990, Alvesson and Kärreman 2000, Grant et al. 2004). The discourse approach to which we relate was outlined by Laclau and Mouffe (1985) in Hegemony and Socialist Strategy. Influenced by poststructuralist thoughts, they deconstructed Marxist theory and outlined at the same time a theoretical discourse perspective.

6.  According to Taylor (1993) Freire never converted to Marxist, revolutionary politics. Instead his core arguments are ‘couched not in the language of Marxism but in the biblical terms of love, faith, hope and humility’. Christianity is consequently also an important source of inspiration to Freire and Taylor quotes Freire as saying ‘God led me to the people and the people led me to Marx … When I met Marx, I continued to meet Christ on the corners of the street–by meeting the people’ (Taylor 1993: 56).

7.  Freire (1973: 82–82) discusses that an antagonism exists among universal themes. Translated to the discursive web the threads strive to become the thickest and achieve a dominant position. Freire's point is that there is a tendency for some of these themes, and for reality itself, to become a myth (1973: 83). The enterprise discourse can, thus, be seen as a myth which is put into question due to the entrance of the equality discourse.

8.  Freire's thinking has its roots in his own personal experience of crossing class borders as a child, and is developed through his experiences of adult literacy education in Brazil prior to the military coup in 1964 and, thereafter, in exile, working with agricultural extension in Chile. As Thomson and Bebbington (2005) argue, several problems arise in trying to understand Freire's work. This is partly because he wrote over a long period of time, from the mid-1960s to the late 1990s, publishing at least 21 books (Roberts 2003), but perhaps also because he remained ‘true’ to his own thoughts in constantly reflecting upon the world. In his last book he writes that ‘in criticizing itself ingenuous curiosity becomes “epistemological curiosity”, as through greater methodological exactitude it appropriates the object of its knowing’ (Freire 1998: 37). Apparently, this has resulted in his work changing over time, and in the later texts he sometimes contradicts earlier versions of his writings. Besides the explanation that he followed his own advice and the fact that he remained a writer and thinker over a long period of time, we also find it reasonable to pay attention to Freire's geographical journey through life. In the now classic text Pedagogy of the Oppressed (Freire 1970)–a text which has been ‘translated in to every major world language and reprinted numerous times’ (Roberts 2003: 452)–we are introduced to the thoughts of Freire through his experiences of literacy and education in the Third World. However, in his last book, Pedagogy of Freedom (1998), the environment has changed dramatically from the third world context to a US context where he held a chair at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. During this vicissitude, Freire apparently became familiar with other forms of oppression and began to question the role of education in society as a transmitter of a dominant enterprise ideology. For instance Freire made the following reflection over the enterprise in his last book: ‘the highest mission and overriding purpose of schooling was to prepare students, at different levels, to take their places in the corporate order’ (Freire 1998: 4). This is simply another description of the enterprise discourse (du Gay 1986, Fairclough 1995). Hence, Freire's concerns were related to the role of education first in a Third World context and later in a Western world context, and his thoughts have been developed primarily within educational science, among educationalists and primarily within a Third World context in the empowering of the poor.

9.  Freire is also considered to be a main contributor to the tradition of PAR–participatory action research (Herr and Anderson 2005). A strong social movement with a political agenda is also an offshoot. His ideas have strongly influenced the movement of adult education and evening courses linked to organizations such as the Workers’ Educational Association (in Sweden ABF). Moreover, Freire's ideas have also been related to social and environmental reporting (Thomson and Bebbington 2005), environmental assessment hearings (Fitzpatrick and Sinclair (2003), community work (Ledwith 2001), medicine and health treatment (Amaro and Raj 2000, Holmes and Warelow 2000), community social psychology (Montenegro 2002), experimental learning among ethnic minorities (Thompson et al. 2004), theology (Malcolm 1999) and even business education (Gibson 1994).

10.  We link the enterprise discourse to a specific context, but as this region does not constitute a cut-off island this discourse also draws from a more widespread notion of the enterprise discourse with a focus on the economic dimension in life (Hjorth et al. 2003) in which the entrepreneur holds a special place as the hero of our times, ideologically orientated towards the rational, risk-taking, Western self-made man (Ogbor 2000, Ahl 2002, Bruni et al. 2004). In such a sense, the enterprise discourse is not only dominating but also suppressing. It excludes initiatives which are not so obviously linked to the economic dimension, as well as the people who have difficulty in identifying with the hero entrepreneur. Dominating discourses, thus, easily make us blind as their conceptions work as a silent backdrop in ongoing conversations. Seemingly, they make it difficult to grasp new aspects of a thing.

11.  According to Laclau and Mouffe (1985) entrepreneurship would be a privileged sign, or ‘a node’, which constitutes the vehicle in both the enterprise and equality discourse.

12.  The conversation shows a situation in which, when the dialogue starts, there is no consciousness concerning the concept of diversity which DiE aims to create. One knows the project and due to one's pre-conceptions of the word it has not consciously been reflected upon.

13.  The process of becoming an entrepreneur or committing onseself to a career as an entrepreneur is studied by Kupferberg (1998) using a life story approach. He also describes this process as a life-long search. Kupferberg illustrates how individuals make sense of their life experiences as self-employed, which in itself can be viewed as a kind of entrepreneurial conscientization. While Kupferberg focuses upon individul narratives our focus in this paper is upon collective processes.