In an economy of rapidly mutating consumer preferences, new forms of surveillance have been developed within contemporary business. Increasingly, so-called “panspectric” techniques of predicting consumption choices, and tracking the shifting customer desires, are proving crucial for corporations trying to compete on the market place. Using the Deleuzian concepts of “assemblage” and “societies of control” as a point of departure, this paper explores how a new societal “diagram” is currently actualised in the marketing practices of contemporary corporations. This diagram emerges as the result of the concatenation of technological architectures (increased digital logging of everyday behaviours and data mining) and new perspectives on the human constitution; perspectives that dovetail nicely with contemporary social theory. Thus, social scientists are already complicit in the emergence of new modes of marketing-cum-surveillance.
PurposeIn the context of contemporary debates on ecopreneurship and sustainable livelihoods, this article seeks to compare two programmes to promote a certain type of agro‐economic practice among rural farmers. By following the successes and failures of these programmes, the text interrogates how such initiatives are evaluated by the surrounding community of aid agencies and governmental bodies.Design/methodology/approachDeploying the theoretical notion of “performativity”, as used within economic anthropology, the article posits that the above‐mentioned programmes can be construed as economic experiments. More specifically, the text compares two concurrent initiatives: One ecopreneurial experiment instigated by a social entrepreneur, and one livelihoods‐focussed experiment instigated by an aid agency. The case study is based upon material from a three‐year ethnography of entrepreneurship‐promoting programmes in Hambantota, Sri Lanka.FindingsWhile the ecopreneurial venture fails, the livelihoods‐based initiative proves successful in demonstrating its economic validity. The case study indicates that, in the context of modes of evaluation focusing on day‐to‐day incomes of farmers, it may be difficult for ecopreneurs to make room for ecological experimentation.Originality/valueHaving identified this “ecopreneur's dilemma”, the article prompts scholars and policy‐makers to investigate it further, and potentially re‐examine how the livelihoods agenda is implemented in practice.
Purpose -In recent discussions on social entrepreneurship, there have been calls for the discipline to make better use of general theories of entrepreneurship. This article seeks to argue that while the literature may not be explicitly theoretical, it often draws upon taken-for-granted concepts inherited from Joseph Schumpeter. Design/methodology/approach -The text seeks to identify Schumpeterian assumptions within the social entrepreneurship literature, and introduce alternative perspectives on "the social" and "entrepreneurship", drawn from the social theory of Gabriel Tarde. These are then discussed in the context of the social entrepreneurial initiative Hand in Hand. Findings -The article identifies and re-assesses three assumptions: that of the social as container; that of capitalism-specific societal dynamism; and that of the atomistic, non-inventive entrepreneur. Originality/value -By re-imagining "the social" and "entrepreneurship" through the work of Tarde, the article suggests that scholars can develop new conceptualisations of social entrepreneurship.
This article explores the shifting context within which surfing subcultures have been surveyed and discussed. Once construed as paradigmatic examples of 'deviant' youth cultures, these subcultures have recently been lauded for their creativity, innovativeness and entrepreneurialism. The text shows how contemporary management theory, which aims to 'reinvent invention', fits into a genre previously established by criminological studies of surfers. This article also argues that the field of sports studies has mediated between these two social scientific disciplines: sports studies scholars have contributed to the reappraisal of surfing subcultures, being early in explicating the enterprising potential of the 'subterranean' values they espouse. Studies of surfing can thus be construed as instrumental in bringing about recent mutations within contemporary capitalism.
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