In this chapter, the historical evolution of entrepreneurship is revisited to identify inadequacies in terms of its conceptualization in the specific context of Palestine, a part of the Global South bloc, facing prolonged occupation, war, and turmoil. An emerging conceptualization of entrepreneurship as resistance is introduced while integrating the theoretical underpinnings of James C. Scott (1985, 1989, 1990)’s political theory of “everyday resistance”. By employing a deconstruction methodology with an inductive, thematic analysis, the researcher has engaged in a process of continuous reflexivity to enable holistic investigation, exploration, and subsequent expansion of the parameters of entrepreneurship at theoretical and practical levels. Supported by empirical evidence from seven Palestinian entrepreneurs who operate their businesses within the power asymmetries enforced by a fragile institutional system, findings unravel entrepreneurship as material and symbolic acts of resistance, as “weapons of the weak” pitted against political domination. For the suppressed and the deprived indigenous entrepreneur, entrepreneurship is found to resemble everyday acts of refusal to be constrained or controlled by a system of oppression.

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Conceptualizing Entrepreneurship as Resistance: The Extreme Context of Palestine

  • Niveen Eid

摘要

In this chapter, the historical evolution of entrepreneurship is revisited to identify inadequacies in terms of its conceptualization in the specific context of Palestine, a part of the Global South bloc, facing prolonged occupation, war, and turmoil. An emerging conceptualization of entrepreneurship as resistance is introduced while integrating the theoretical underpinnings of James C. Scott (1985, 1989, 1990)’s political theory of “everyday resistance”. By employing a deconstruction methodology with an inductive, thematic analysis, the researcher has engaged in a process of continuous reflexivity to enable holistic investigation, exploration, and subsequent expansion of the parameters of entrepreneurship at theoretical and practical levels. Supported by empirical evidence from seven Palestinian entrepreneurs who operate their businesses within the power asymmetries enforced by a fragile institutional system, findings unravel entrepreneurship as material and symbolic acts of resistance, as “weapons of the weak” pitted against political domination. For the suppressed and the deprived indigenous entrepreneur, entrepreneurship is found to resemble everyday acts of refusal to be constrained or controlled by a system of oppression.