Entrepreneurship as a structure of feelings

Abstract

Drawing on ethnographic research carried out on the outskirts of São Paulo, this article analyses how entrepreneurship takes shape as a structure of feelings associated with wageless life. It argues that, for the interviewees, autonomy tends to replace rights as the primary horizon of fulfilment, without necessarily rejecting them. Entrepreneurship thus emerges as a moral framework through which workers reinterpret work, citizenship and social mobility in contexts of economic instability.