The emergence of peripheral entrepreneurialism in Brazil: the formation of new subjectivities amidst the market, state, and society in the urban margins

Abstract

Entrepreneurialism is a crucial topic as a discourse and practice among urban popular classes in Brazil. In this context, the dominant interpretation highlights new forms of neoliberal ideology and domination through the imperative of becoming an “entrepreneur of oneself”. This paper aims to challenge the direct connection between the wish to be an entrepreneur and the embrace of “neoliberal reason”. For this purpose, it will be analysed how subjective, political, and material aspects are mobilized by a specific group of small entrepreneurs formed by dwellers of an urban peripheral neighborhood. This research is based on two years of ethnographic work among a group of entrepreneurs in the southern periphery of São Paulo, Brazil. This group is called here “peripheral entrepreneurs” due to their cultural and political connections with the periphery. They pose demands for social protection and redistribution, liberation from oppression, and social embedment of the market. Thus, it is argued that they operate in a “triple movement” since the market, the State, and society can offer complementary or contradictory answers to their demands.