Poli%cising*Social*Entrepreneurship

–*Three*Social*Entrepreneurial*Ra%onali%es*Toward*Social*Change1

This is the pre-published version. For final version see:

Barinaga, Ester. 2013. “Politicising Social Entrepreneurship: Three Social Entrepreneurial Rationalities towards Social Change.” Journal of Social Entrepreneurship.

ABSTRACT

Scholars in the field of social entrepreneurship are challenging us to produce empirical research on the social dimension of this phenomenon. Drawing on Foucault this paper proposes the notion of ‘social entrepreneurial rationality’ to capture the social dimension of social entrepreneurship The article builds on a comparative case study of three social ventures, each adopting a different rationality to bring about change in regards to the organization of our societies along ethnicity. The first introduces micro-finance in Sweden to address long-term unemployed women of immigrant background; the second is an immigrant youth association working to promote the group’s values; the third is the collective production of public art in traditional immigrant suburbs of Stockholm. Whereas the first uses an economic rationality to address ethnic inequality, the second and the third make use of discursive and community rationality, respectively. This challenges social entrepreneurship scholars to acknowledge the political mileage of social entrepreneurial rationalities towards social change.

KEY WORDSsocial entrepreneurial rationality, ethnicity, economic rationality, discursive rationality, community rationality, comparative study

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1 This article benefited from insightful suggestions on an earlier draft from Linda Smircich, Marta Calas, Daniel Hjorth and Mia Hartmamm and participants at various conferences and seminars. I also appreciate the insightful suggestions from the editorial board and anonymous reviewers.

The past ten to fifteen years have witnessed a growing recognition of the role played by social entrepreneurial initiatives in alleviating the afflictions that are distressing our societies. Evidence for the variety of initiatives is the number of terms used to refer to them. Some of these terms are contemporary, such as ‘social innovation’, ‘social entrepreneurship’, and ‘social economy’; others have a longer history, such as ‘non-profit sector’, ‘local communities’, and ‘civil society organizations’. The particular term that is chosen reflects the broader perspective underlying the discussion of such initiatives: From broadening the notion of innovation (Moulaert et al. 2005) to identifying and describing a rich diversity of economic practices (Gibson-Graham, 2003), or eliciting the variety of entrepreneurial efforts (Steyaert and Katz 2004). However, whatever the term one selects or the focus one applies, these initiatives collectively indicate ‘a post-capitalist politics’ (Gibson-Graham 2006), the coming of age of ‘the citizen sector’ (Drayton 2002), and a resolve to transcend the ‘economization of the social’ (Hjorth 2013).

Indeed, social scientists, politicians, civil servants, and practitioners share an appreciation of social entrepreneurial initiatives‘ unwavering attention to the social. Phrased in terms of either ‘social value creation’ (Austin et al. 2006, Weerawardena and Mort 2006, Dees 1998), ‘social impact’ (Dees 2007, Dees et al. 2004), or ‘social change’ (Barinaga 2012, Mair and Martí 2004), the tight relation between the social enterprise and social entrepreneur to the social mission is seen as instrumental for the practice and understanding of social entrepreneurship (Nicholls 2008). Not surprisingly, this focus on the social dimension has been recognised as connecting the various definitions of social entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurs (Bacq and Janssens 2011), and as a way to distinguish social entrepreneurship from other types of entrepreneurship (Peredo and McLean 2006).

Despite this consensus about the centrality of the social dimension for practitioners of social entrepreneurship, to date, empirical studies have almost exclusively concentrated on the managerial and entrepreneurial aspects of the phenomenon (Hjorth 2013). The argument is that this new breed of social activists are, indeed, distinguished by the fact that they bring market rationalities and business modes of operation into their social engagement, in that way making the citizen sector more effective (Drayton 2002), and bringing about democracy, social progress and social change (Fowler 2000, Prahalad 2005, Nicholls and Cho 2006). In this line of argument, scholars have discussed the social entrepreneurial process and the practices of social entrepreneurs in terms of opportunity recognition, risk tolerance, innovativeness and resourcefulness (Mort et al. 2003, Weerawardena and Mort 2006). The business character of social enterprises has been especially emphasised in the UK (Defourny and Nyssens 2010, Nicholls 2009). And yet, as some have pointed out, markets do not always work well for social enterprises (Dees 1998) nor are they their main source of income (Bacq et al. 2013). Further, it has been noted that the specific rationality of a social enterprise is greatly affected by the institutional context in which it operates (Defourny and Nyssens 2010; Tracey et al. 2011, Battilana and Dorado 2010). Accordingly, it has been observed that in nations with a strong welfare state, such as the Scandinavian countries, social enterprises have less pronounced market strategies (Salamon et al. 2003). In sum, important as it is to value the market and entrepreneurial dimensions of the social entrepreneurship equation, we need to grant equal attention to its social dimension.

This article is an effort in that direction. It seeks to develop social entrepreneurship’s appreciation for, and relation to, the social. Inspired by a Foucauldian understanding of rationality (see Rose and Miller 1992), I introduce the idea of ‘social entrepreneurial rationality’ to refer to the way social entrepreneurial initiatives frame, justify and legitimate the methods, strategies, tools and distinctions they deploy for the management of social change efforts. In line with Foucault’s argument

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for the reciprocal constitution of forms of power and forms of knowledge (Lemke 2001), the idea of social entrepreneurial rationality links modes of thought about the social to the (design and management) practices of social change efforts, thus recognising the political potential of social entrepreneurial undertakings.

Based on a comparative study of three social entrepreneurial initiatives, the article elicits these initiatives’ particular conceptions of the social by exploring the social entrepreneurial rationalities they implicitly espouse. For the sake of comparison, all three social entrepreneurial initiatives selected address the ethnic system that afflicts our society. The first initiative is the introduction of micro-finance by a small/medium-size savings bank in Sweden to meet the needs of long-term unemployed women of immigrant background. The second is an immigrant youth association working to change the meaning of ‘Swedishness’. The third is the production of collective public art as a means to give a stronger voice to residents in stigmatised suburbs of Stockholm. We have identified three distinct social entrepreneurial rationalities guiding these initiatives. The first uses an economic rationality to address the effects of ethnicity without ever questioning the ethnic boundary itself; the second follows a discursive rationality that politicises ethnicity as a strategy employed to resist its organizing effects; by focusing on a particular neighbourhood, the third uses a logic of community that ignores all reference to ethnicity. These are three different ways in which social entrepreneurial initiatives define and relate to the social, thus suggesting the political mileage of social entrepreneurship.

Problema)zing.the.Social.in.Social.Entrepreneurship.“Social entrepreneurship is defined by its two constituent elements: a prime strategic focus on social impact and an innovative approach to achieving its mission” (Nicholls 2008: 13). Although, together with Nicholls, many an observer distinguish the social and the entrepreneurial as two key dimensions to understanding social entrepreneurship, there has been disproportionate focus on the second to the neglect of the first. As a result, two schools of thought focusing on the entrepreneurial have been identified – the social enterprise school, also referred to as the income-generation school, and the social innovation school (Dees and Battle Anderson 2006, Hoogendoorn et al. 2010) – whereas only incipient efforts can be discerned that focus on the social, mainly in continental Europe (Bacq and Janssens 2011). Understood either as market oriented income-generation strategies or as innovative methods, emphasis on the entrepreneurial side tends to re-describe social problems as economic and make them objects of managerial expertise (Steyaert and Katz 2004; Mair 2010).

The consequence of the one-sided focus on the entrepreneurial aspect (seen as either the market or innovation) is the ‘depolitisation’ of the social. More specifically, social entrepreneurship risks becoming aligned with the normative ‘neo-conservative, pro-business, and pro-market’ parameters of advanced liberal societies (Dart 2004). This is the case whether it foregrounds aspects related to the individual social entrepreneur – such as his/her motivations and traits (Bornstein 2007, Sharir and Lerner 2006), capacity to recognise opportunities for creating social ventures and address social ills (Zahra et. al. 2009), risk-taking inclination (Mort et al. 2003, Weerawardena and Mort 2006), or instead, focuses on managerial, financial and marketing aspects (Bloom and Sklot 2010, Zietlow 2001) while ignoring issues of power and ideology. That is, if we are to do justice to the social focus of social entrepreneurs, the social, too, needs to be problematized (Hjorth 2013). I suggest using Foucault’s notion of governmentality as a first step in this direction.

Governmentality refers to the rationality guiding efforts to govern the conduct of self and others, as well as the many and varied sets of practices, tactics and procedures used in those efforts. The concept points not only to State government or political leadership, but indicates to the ‘right

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manner of disposing things so as to lead […] to an end which is “convenient” for each of the things that are to be governed’ (Foucault 1991:95, italics added). It is thus not a question of imposing laws and rules on populations, but of ‘disposing things’, of ‘employing tactics’, of ‘arrang[ing] things in such and such way so that, through a certain number of means, such and such ends may be achieved’ (ibid.). Those ‘things’ are the ‘target of government’, inhabitants, social groups, populations (ibid, 93).

The neologism is a semantic combination of government and mentality, mirroring the conceptual link between practices and rationalities of government, between tactics for the conduct of people and modes of thought, between intervention and representation (Lemke 2001). That is, Foucault uses governmentality to ‘examin[e] how forms of rationality inscribe themselves in practices or systems of practices, and what role they play within them, because it’s true that “practices” don’t exist without a certain regime of rationality’ (Foucault 1991:79). This serves Foucault to elicit ‘the interplay between a “code” which rules ways of doing things (how people are to be graded and examined, things and signs classified, individuals trained, etc.) and a production of true discourses which serve to found, justify and provide reasons and principles for these ways of doing things’ (ibid).

Three elements of governmentality, or ‘the conduct of conduct’ as it is often defined, are particularly relevant for our understanding of social entrepreneurial efforts. The first is the identification of the ‘right manner’ of addressing the social affliction, the establishment of the practices and tactics suggested by the entrepreneur to improve/govern the social. The second is the identification of an appropriate ‘end’, the rationality or mode of thought guiding entrepreneurial efforts, the conception of the social which ‘serves to found, justify and provide reasons and principles for these ways of doing things’. The third is the connection between tactics and rationality, between the practices to address the social and the conception of the social guiding those practices. These three elements also serve to reveal the political and ideological potential of such initiatives, for they point to the search for better ways of organizing society and for improved forms of living (Dean 1999:33).

As we have seen, students of social entrepreneurship have been largely preoccupied with the methods, practices and tactics of social entrepreneurs, thus leading them to stress the entrepreneurial question of social entrepreneurship. This paper sets to explore the other half of the equation: How do social entrepreneurs define their (social) ends? How do they conceive the social? How do they found, justify and provide reasons for the methods they use? And, how do their conceptions of the social relate to the practices and tactics of change? Essentially, how do social entrepreneurs conceive (i.e. rationality) and relate (i.e. tactics) to the social?

MethodA comparative case study research design (Yin 2009) seemed the most appropriate for studying the ways in which social entrepreneurs conceive and relate to the social in their societal mission. Given the ultimate theoretical purpose of the study, to problematize the social, the logic for selecting the case studies was to produce contrasting, but comparable, results. Four criteria were used for selection of the cases. 1. To circumvent disagreement among scholarly definitions, the initiatives as well as those funding them had to present them as social entrepreneurial initiatives. That is, in line with an ethnographic-inspired research approach, I let the field and not a list of standardised criteria decide their social entrepreneurial status. 2. For the sake of comparability, all cases had to address the same social problem. Access and my previous research on populations of immigrant background in Sweden led me to choose initiatives that addressed ethnicity as a boundary organizing socio-economic relations. 3. Given the relevance of national environments in the strategies and performance of social entrepreneurial initiatives (Defourny and Nyssens 2010; Tracey et al. 2011, Bacq and Janssens 2011,

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Salamon et al. 2003), comparability was assured by choosing cases all located in the same geographical region: mid-Sweden, two of them in its capital. Finally, 4. To increase the dynamic tension across cases and enhance a contrasting analytical strategy (Yin 2009), the initiatives had to originate in different institutional fields. Thus, the first initiative had its origins in the banking sector, the second in youth associations and the third, in an established academic institution.

Access to the different case studies was negotiated independently of each other. The first case study presented here, the introduction of microfinance in Sweden to address the needs of long-term unemployed women of immigrant background, was part of a larger study. I was one of five researchers following the emergence of the field of microfinance in Sweden. This entailed a study of the actors and the institutional arrangements that were developing as the notion of microfinance was being introduced and spread in Sweden, as well as the power struggles involved in the emergence of the new institutional arrangement. Access to the second case study came through an initiative by the Swedish Knowledge Foundation to strengthen incipient social entrepreneurial start-ups. The collaboration between the Knowledge Foundation, MIKU (the youth association here presented), and the university with which I was affiliated focused on coaching the social entrepreneurial venture while developing teaching materials. Finally, access to the third social venture discussed in this paper came through my own practice as an engaged scholar. Voices of the Suburbs2 is a community-based arts organization that I founded in 2010 and continue to chair. Thus, the case inserts itself within the growing tradition of post-critical ethnographers/activists that travel the ‘blurred boundary when Other becomes researcher, narrated becomes narrator, translated becomes translator, native becomes anthropologist’ (Noblit et al. 2004, p. 166).

For data generation, I paid attention to increasing demands on the part of governmentality scholars to combine traditional discourse analysis with ethnographic methods (McKee, 2009, Pii and Villadsen 2012, Murray Li 2007). This combination renders visible the instabilities, messiness and struggles that characterise social change processes ignited by social ventures. The number of ethnographic interviews (Spradley 1979) carried out and the number of hours of participant observation varied across the cases, with more hours devoted to the third, engaged scholarship project and fewer to the second coaching project. However, in all three cases, the varied nature of qualitative material generated throughout the studies (from in-depth interviews, ethnographic field notes, formal reports, meeting minutes, applications and websites) helped assure the strength and reliability of the analytical findings, especially since the multiple sources of evidence converged, complementing each other and adding nuance. Methodological pluralism aims at avoiding potential bias introduced by the researcher and informants, thus generating a richer and more sophisticated understanding of the phenomenon under study (Brewer and Hunter, 1989; Polkinghorne, 1983).

In my analysis of data on how three entrepreneurial initiatives conceived and related to the social, I began with an initial in-depth case-by-case analysis, and then proceeded to a cross-case analysis (Eisenhardt 1989). As a prelude to the within-case data analysis I wrote detailed descriptions of each case which, in the first and third cases, took the form of teaching cases (Quinn 1980, cited in Eisenhardt 1989), prepared interview and meeting transcripts, and organized information in tables. Analysis of the material thus prepared clustered around Geertz’s three primary questions: ‘who they think they are, what they think they are doing, and to what end they think they are doing it.”’ (Geertz 2000). This process allowed the uniqueness of each case to emerge. Only then did I move on to

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2&Voices of the Suburbs is a free translation from the Swedish name Förorten i Centrum, that will hopefully be more friendly to English-speaking readers. Although friendly, the translation unfortunately losses a host of meanings implicit in the Swedish name, meanings that highlight the role of space in the persistence of urban socio-economic inequality. Literally, Förorten i Centrum would read “The Suburb at the Center”.

comparisons across cases. Given the research purpose to extend our understanding of the social in social entrepreneurship, the first comparative dimension was social entrepreneurs’ reasoning about their social mission. I looked for those places and instances in which entrepreneurs justified the tactics they suggested and argued for the practices they implemented. A second comparative dimension was the ways that the social ventures related to ethnicity. Discussions concerning selection of the target of their efforts became central here. This comparison developed into the table included in the discussion section of this article. In a third and final step, I reported the case-by-case results of this analysis to the social entrepreneurs. The written report of the microfinance case was shared with the project leader of the initiative who confirmed and added nuance to the interpretation. The analysis of MIKU, the second case, was not discussed in written form, but at a meeting with the person heading the second initiative. Given that I am the founder and chair of the third case, sharing the analysis with my research colleagues as well as fellow workers was of particular relevance to avoid bias. While corroborating the analysis, discussion with co-workers in Voices of the Suburbs also helped us make explicit the heretofore implicit criteria for selecting neighbourhoods to work in.

Ini)a)ve.1:.Micro=finance.in.SwedenIn October 2008 the Swedish association of savings banks initiated a pilot project aiming at introducing micro-finance in Sweden. Although during the pilot project focused on the Savings Bank of Sörmland collaboration with Neem3, a social entrepreneurial venture supporting upcoming entrepreneurs from ethnic minorities, the bank also started conversation with other non-profit organizations such as Dagöholm, a non-profit association for the rehabilitation of drug-addicts, as well as Basta and Kris, two non-profit organizations run by and for the benefit of former criminals and drug-addicts.

Savings banks are value-driven financial institutions committed to develop local businesses and server their communities (Marquis and Lounsbury 2007). Sponsoring cultural and sport activities, providing economic help to non-profit associations, supporting mentorship programs for the young, funding studies for specific regional programs, they serve as a bank for the community. That is, for savings banks, social involvement naturally accompanies more traditional commercial interests. It is within this mixed logic of value-driven commercial business that micro-finance was being introduced in Sweden as a tool to work with marginalized groups. The pilot project, which is the object of the case study, focused on a particular marginalized group: long-term unemployed women of immigrant background (for a more detailed analysis of this initiative, see Author, under review(a)).

Ra#onalityThe objective of the Swedish Association of Savings Banks was to reach ‘outsiders’ defined as those individuals ‘outside the labour market and with no relation to the banking system’. Several features of this formulation of its mission are worth highlighting for they hint at the implicit change rationality. The first is that it is an economic definition of exclusion. Exclusion means to have been outside the labour market for a prolonged period of time and having no probability of getting in through the most common pathways for getting a job. In other words, outsiderness implies ‘not being able to earn one’s living’, and thus being dependent on social welfare assistance to provide for oneself and one’s family. Implied is the idea that economic exclusion equals social exclusion.

Such an economic formulation of the social problem to address had implications in how microfinance was to be evaluated. In the words of the project leader,

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3 For&confiden2ality&reasons,&the&organiza2ons&and&individuals&studied&have&been&anonymised.

‘the project’s success shouldn’t be measured in number of micro-loans, but rather in number of new companies started as well as number of persons that do not depend on social welfare benefits anymore. Even if some people do not become self-employed, the project may have helped them to move into paid employment or into further studies.’

(meeting minutes, October 19, 2008)

Micro-finance is addressed to those people who are economically dependent. The objective, to make them economically independent. The underlying rationality is that financial inclusion leads to economic independence and thus, to social inclusion. The social becomes but a form of the economic.

A second characteristic of the objective of the micro-finance initiative is its focus on ‘outsiderness’ per se, without any direct relationship to its causes. Being situated at the margins is taken as a fact, ignoring the root causes that led the individual to the periphery. That is, the effects of outsiderness are to be addressed rather than its causes.

Third, as a consequence of the focus on the effects rather than the cause of exclusion, there is a deliberate avoidance of any reference to ethnicity as a social boundary at the root of socio-economic exclusion. The following quote is exemplary:

‘It is important that this project is not only for persons of foreign background, but also for other persons outside society. It shouldn’t be perceived as if a particular group is being given special treatment – this is important for the reputation of the whole project.’

(meeting minutes, October 19, 2008)

Either from fear of reproach, or from awareness to the risk of reproducing the ‘immigrant’ stigma, those behind the initiative aimed at finding an all-inclusive vocabulary and work practice/tactic.

Finally, since the focus is on effect, and since ethnicity is to be dodged as an explicit criterion guiding all efforts, a diversity of people at the margins ends up lumped together. Ex-convicts, ex-drug-addicts, long-term unemployed women of immigrant background, or newly arrived refugees, that is, whatever the reason for socio-economic marginalization, a position at the margins can be addressed by means of the same tactics: those associated to micro-finance. The following quote is illustrative. When discussing lumping ex-convicts, former drug-addicts and immigrant women together, the project leader comments:

‘Even if the problem leading to outsiderness is different, the solution to the problem is the same!’

The economic rationality of the bank does not distinguish between separate sources of exclusion. Reasoning that the cause of socio-economic exclusion can be ignored results in an effort to standardise dealing with the socio-economic vulnerable, a rationality that later shaped the tactics, techniques and practices developed to deal with the initiative’s target subjects.

In sum, the economic rationality guiding the bank is detached from ethnicity. Hierarchical ethnic socio-economic relations are not addressed directly. Ethnicity is only implicitly suggested as a source for economic exclusion, which is to be tackled the same way no matter how a particular individual came to be in that predicament. The social, that is, is part of the economic and is to be addressed thus.

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Tac#csNow, by definition, the bank has no relationship to groups of outsiders since those groups are ‘non-bankable’. How is the bank to access such groups and make them ‘bankable’? The practical difficulty of reaching the target group forced ethnicity into the project. In order to access outsiders, the savings bank went through non-profit organizations that worked directly with such groups. These organizations did define themselves in terms of the particular boundary that marginalized their target group. Accordingly, Kris (the acronym stands for Kriminals Revenge In Society) highlighted criminality as the boundary that defined them; Basta and Dagöholm stressed drug addiction as marking their interns; and, of particular relevance to this article, Neem defined itself as a non-profit for women entrepreneurs from ethnic minorities. Gender and ethnicity were the two boundaries that organized Neem’s work and delimited their target group.

A direct consequence of selecting outsiders through organizations that saw themselves and their members along ethnicity was that individual entrepreneurs became interesting not because they were situated at the margins of society, but rather because of their immigrant background, thus necessarily reintroducing the ethnic boundary that so was avoided by the bank. The case of Afiya is telling in this respect.

Afiya was an Iraqi woman who grew up in Iran. She moved to Sweden some twenty years earlier and had been working ever since. For the previous 3 to 4 years she had entertained the idea of opening her own café, when the opportunity came up to purchase a small news/food stand in the train station of a nearby village. When Afiya contacted Neem, she already had a well-developed business idea, spoke Swedish fluently, and had been economically independent for the last 20 years. As Afiya explained, she contacted Neem in the belief that, as an immigrant women, she would get more advantageous loan conditions if going through Neem. For a week Afiya sat with Neem and completed a business plan. Only after these meetings did she visit the bank, accompanied by Neem representatives. Neem presents Afiya as the first ‘immigrant woman’ to obtain a micro-loan through them.

Interestingly, Afiya was never an outsider in the strict economic sense of the term. As a single mother of three she had been able to provide for herself and her children for the previous 20 years, working either as an interpreter, teaching Arabic to day-care children, or in the restaurant sector. Yet, Neem presents her as a potential micro-loan recipient because she is an ‘immigrant woman with a business idea.’ Ethnicity and gender – and not the economic criteria of the bank – become the boundaries defining outsiderness once selection of the potential micro-loan recipient goes through organizations that use those boundaries to define their target group. Ethnicity is re-instantiated at the very moment the micro-loan initiative has to be individualised. In other words, although ethnicity as such was never a criterion for defining the potential loan-taker, when having to individualise the loan recipient, ethnicity re-appeared as one of the most salient criteria.

Although, following an economic rationality, supporters of the microfinance initiative preferred to standardise (and thus depoliticise) their efforts across socio-economic vulnerable groups, when it came to the practical implementation of the initiative, the boundary that was so deliberately avoided (ethnicity), was necessarily reintroduced. That is, the economic rationality guiding the introduction of microfinance in Sweden may disregard the political and critical aspects of the social change that is its goal. Yet, the practical reality of implementing microfinance forced the political dimension of the microfinance initiative to resurface. One can only wonder about the potential consequences of ignoring the political potential of social change in terms of the effectiveness of

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change efforts. Ultimately, the bank’s depolitization of microfinance resulted in Neem abandoning the collaboration and starting up its own microfinance institute.

Wrapping up. In an effort to enlarge its economic base and gain access to a new market niche while also promoting the financial inclusion of long-term unemployed women of immigrant background living in the region, the savings bank juxtaposes commercial and social interests. The economic rationality that guides the bank’s efforts resulted in a standardization of their methods: all individuals were to be offered micro-credits regardless of the socio-economic dynamic at the root of their exclusion. That is, the banks’ economic rationality towards social change resulted in an inclusive work tactic that seemed, at least at first sight, equally appropriate to meet the needs of long-term unemployed immigrant women or the problems experienced by ex-convicts and former drug-addicts in gaining access to the labour market. As pivotal as a focus on the material/economic effects of unemployment may be, it resulted in the initiative’s disregard of the symbolic and relational roots of ethnic inequality. And thus, when collaborating with non-profit organizations in order to reach those that were by definition ‘non-bankable’, the bank ignored the fact that the non-profit re-produced ethnicity through its selection processes. The bank’s economic approach to social change was ignorant of the ideological and political aspects of the social change the bank wanted to see happen.

Ini)a)ve.2:.Immigrant.Youth.Associa)onAt the end of the 1940s and beginning of the 1950s, a mounting housing shortage burdened major cities in Sweden. As a coordinated response to the general housing shortage, the Swedish parliament decided in 1964 that one million dwellings should be built in the coming ten years. These were to be built in the outskirts, taking advantage of the increased accessibility made possible by new transport technologies such as the car and the commuter train. Swedish municipalities were granted favourable financial conditions for large-scale construction work, particularly if these projects were larger than 1000 dwellings. As a consequence, these areas came to be characterized by a functionalist aesthetic marked by economic effectiveness (Johansson 1991).

Of all the dwellings in Sweden today, 25% were built between 1965 and 1975, and 10% of Stockholm’s population live in one of its seven ‘million program suburbs’ (Lundevall 2006). At that time these complexes were regarded as an example of modern and rational building, and the first dwellers were pleased with the high standard and big living spaces. Today, however, ‘the million program areas’, as they are popularly called, have become a symbol for failed housing policy, the consequence of excessive state intervention in city planning. Many of these areas have been demolished or are empty awaiting demolition (Jörnmark 2007).

Nevertheless, in major cities such as Stockholm, Malmö and Göteborg, these suburbs are overcrowded, mainly with people under socio-economic strain, most often with origins in a foreign country. This is so prevalent that ‘the million program areas’ or ‘the suburbs’ have become synonymous in the media and the popular mind with ‘immigrant ghettos’ (Ericsson 2006, Wacquant 2008).

MIKU was an association of young people with roots in the million program areas, the name standing for ‘youth of the million culture (MIljon Kultur Ungdom).’

Ra#onalityMIKU aimed at ‘creating a different culture in Sweden, a culture where we see each other.’ When asked to which aspects of culture they were referring, the answer was clear: ‘the general discourse on the

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million program and its inhabitants,’ ‘how society portrays the Other.’ Four traits of their social mission are worth highlighting.

First, the problem identified by MIKU is the prevalent discourse about the suburbs and the people who live there, not the suburbs and their inhabitants per se. They argue that while this discourse may be most evident in the ideas spread throughout established media, it also underlies all aspects of social, cultural and economic practices in Sweden. The discourse they denounce defines groups according to ethnic background. The ‘other’ referred to is the ethnic other, people living in the ‘million’ suburbs, people of immigrant background.

Second, the change MIKU aims at is a change in the meanings attached to the categories on both sides of the ethnic boundary-line drawn by the discourse. Accordingly, MIKU aimed at ‘seiz[ing] back the concepts ‘Sweden’ and ‘Swedish’ from “The Swedish Democrats”. To establish that those living in Hammarkullen, Rosengård and similar areas are Swedes.’4 Hamarkullen in Gothenburg and Rosengård in Malmö are two particular ‘million suburbs’ that have become a symbol of immigrant enclaves in big cities. By turning everybody into a Swede, MIKU rationale is to discursively erode ethnicity as a relevant criteria to categorise people and to divide groups.

Third, MIKU saw ethnic discourse as the root cause of socio-economic exclusion. As a result, to achieve a more just organization of society, discourse itself needed to be addressed. To ‘counteract everyday racism’, that is, to change ethnic stigmatisation and marginalization, MIKU argued for directly confronting the dominant discourse on the ethnic other with the help of the voices of those so defined. In this way of reasoning, discourse itself becomes the tool for achieving social change.

Finally, since MIKU regarded the prevailing ethnic discourse as a root cause of the problem, their focus on the problem and its solution moved beyond the individual ethnic other and beyond the suburbs to the society at large, to generalised ideas and attitudes of the ethnic other. Thus, the target group for MIKU’s efforts was Swedish society as a whole, not single individuals of immigrant background (as in the microfinance case) nor the neighbourhoods these individuals inhabit (as in the third case). MIKU, that is, addressed established dominant society, and not those segments identified as ethnically other.

In sum, MIKU endorses a discursive rationality which argues that transformation of society occurs by means of transformation of the dominant discourse. This form of rationality is tightly connected to ethnicity, which becomes itself the discourse to be changed. Here, the social is a system of thought, a composite of categories (such as ‘Swede’ and ‘immigrant’) that guide everyday social life.

Tac#csHow do you address normative, dominant society from the periphery? Is it possible to change the discourse on ethnicity from the subordinate position defined by that very discourse? Furthermore, how do you begin to tackle a discourse that is largely invisible to normal society? These were some of MIKU’s practical concerns.

Two projects were typical for MIKU’s tactics concerning changing discourse: ‘ArtEID’, and ‘Swedish Democrat’. Both were efforts to not only question dominant discourse on the ethnic other, but also to reformulate established categories of ‘Swede’ vs. ‘immigrant’.

In an attempt to elicit ‘the way society portrays the Other’, ArtEID invited artists of Muslim background from all around the world to present their work to a larger audience and to stimulate a ‘discussion on the enormous creativity that exists but finds no place in the established cultural scene’.

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4&‘Sweden’s&Democrats’&or&Sverigedemokraterna,&is&a&farKright&poli2cal&party&with&a&strong&na2onalist&and&xenophobic&tone,&defining&Swedish&and&Swedishness&in&opposi2on&to&immigrants.

By showing the variety of expressions coming from artists of Muslim descent, MIKU aimed at visualising ‘prejudices, ignorance and lack of interest’. Art was the vehicle for problematizing existing discourse.

----------------------------------------- Insert Picture 1 here: ArtEID -------------------------------------

‘Swedish Democrat’ was an attempt to start a network of local editorial offices in the various ‘million program’ suburbs that could provide young people living in these areas with a space from which to be heard. Presented as an alternative to established media, ‘Swedish Democrat’ projected the voices of the young residents of the suburbs through local radio stations and magazines. Resisting the dominant discourse that, MIKU argued, was so common in established media, and in order to re-articulate the narrow meaning associated with the category of ‘Swede’, MIKU made sure local voices were depicted on their own terms. The name of the project speaks for the extent to which they re-appropriated the adjective ‘Swedish’ as they played with the name of Sweden’s far-right xenophobic party ‘Sweden’s democrats’.

------------------------------------ Insert Picture 2 here: Svenska Demokrat -----------------------------

‘ArtEID’ and ‘Swedish Democrat’ attempted to change dominant discourse on ethnicity by creating platforms from which to polemicize it. The tactics in these projects were to make visible the heterogeneity within the group classified as ‘other’. By showing the arbitrariness of the ‘Swede’ and ‘immigrant’ classifications, and by re-appropriating the term ‘Swedish’, MIKU showed the discursive nature of ethnicity.

Second, by describing themselves as an actor within the Swedish cultural and media scenes and stating their Swedishness from a Muslim standpoint, MIKU broadened the meaning of the ethnic categories. They actively promoted a discourse on Swedishness that was inclusive of all ethnicities. Thus, while drawing their agency from being ‘ethnic’ others, in MIKU’s tactics ethnicity ceased to automatically structure the discourse about who ‘we’ were. Discourse was thus addressed through discourse.

Third, showing the constructed nature of the ethnic other and the ethnic Swede suggested the political nature of traditional views about ethnicity. By actively redefining who ‘they’ (the ethnic other) were, MIKU enlarged the ‘we’ to include all those living in Sweden, independent of their ethnic background. This uncovered the dominant discourse on ethnicity, in which ‘we’ is predefined in a narrow way.

MIKU’s strategy and tactics were directly related to ethnicity in the way it formulated the social problem to be addressed as well as in the solution it proposed: the dominant discourse on ethnicity was reasoned as the underlying cause of social relations of domination; the solution was to broaden the categories structuring the discourse so that these come together. By showing its discursive nature MIKU, that is, politicised ethnicity.

Summing up the rationality and tactics of this second social entrepreneurial initiative. Instead of focusing on the material aspects of one’s socio-economic situation, as the microfinance initiative

11

did, MIKU’s effort was directed towards the symbolic dimension of ethnic inequality. The target of a discursive rationality is the meanings attached to dominant discursive categories, nationals vs. immigrants in this case. This leaves aside all reference to the material conditions of possibility of a discursive dichotomy of this kind. But, as Butler pointed out, ‘any effort to oppose subordination will necessarily presuppose and re-invoke it’ (Butler 1997, p.12), and so invoking a position at either side of the ethnic boundary, either ‘Swede’ to question the narrow meaning of the category or ‘ethnic other’ to draw legitimacy for one’s efforts, implied re-invoking the very boundary the initiative aimed to re-articulate. That is, while the social entrepreneurial initiative derived its agency from the ethnic boundary it aimed to resist, it also revealed the arbitrary, discursive structures at the root of ethnic inequality.

Ini)a)ve.3:.Collec)ve.Public.Arts.Organiza)onA ‘million program suburb’, Husby is typically described as ‘an immigrant suburb’ with all the connotations this designation brings to mind: higher unemployment rates and greater dependency on social welfare. Statistical figures support this picture: 82.7% of the population has an immigrant background (compared to 28.1% for the entire City of Stockholm); 16.6% of the population depends on social welfare (compared to 4.6% for the City of Stockholm); 53.5% of the population between 20 and 64 has a job (compared to 76.7% for the City of Stockholm). Yet, other figures from the same source present a more nuanced picture: 10.7% of the population between 16 and 64 is enrolled in either high school or adult studies in preparation for further studies (compared with 6.8% for the City of Stockholm); 5.7% of the population in the same age range is enrolled in university studies, a figure that is only a bit lower than that for the entire City of Stockholm, 7.3%.

Residents complain about media’s contribution to the one-sided image of Husby, and they experience the negative reputation of the region as a major problem (Author, 2013). Many youngsters mention ‘the bad name of the region’ as a reason for moving away (Ungdomstyrelsen 2008). Voices of the Suburbs (VoS), literally translated as ‘the suburb at the centre’, is a social entrepreneurial initiative attempting to address the frustration over the stigmatising image of the suburbs through the production of collective mural art in public spaces (Author under review(b)).

Ra#onalityThe initiative aims to ‘let those that are talked about in the established public debate take the power over their own stories’; to ‘create platforms for different social groups to meet and see each other’; and ‘to, through collective mural processes, pave the way for social cohesion’. The long-term vision is ‘to transform the image of the “resident of the suburbs” [an euphemism commonly used in Sweden to refer to people of immigrant background] from a negative one to one in which the group is appreciated for its contribution to Swedish art and city life’.

The first characteristic of the VoS’ mission statement is the way the initiative frames the problem it intends to address. ‘The established public debate’, the general discourse about the ‘million program suburbs’ and their residents, represents something more than just stigmatising stories and images of those areas. It is also the expression of residents’ lack of ‘power over they own stories’. VoS often uses the following quote, from a young resident in Husby, to illustrate the residents’ anger about the lack of power to define who they are and how they are:

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It is such a bad stamp. If someone asks you ‘Where do you live?’ and you answer ‘Rinkeby’ or ‘Husby’ then it is ‘Aha! There…’ [in a depreciating tone]. They already know who you are and how you are.

Second, stigma, originating in the lack of power to shape how one is perceived, is seen as both the root and the result of segregated social relations. Accordingly, VoS seemed to argue, to address the biased images associated with the ethnic other, social relations themselves need to be transformed. Stigma is seen as a relation in which the parts have a limited and limiting view of the other and the way to overcome stigma, VoS argued, is by confronting both parts of that relation. Hence, and this is the third characteristic of VoS’s reasoning, VoS’s references to ‘social cohesion’, ‘meeting platforms’ and ‘initiating dialogue between different social groups’. Their logo, two faces looking at each other, speaks to their belief in the centrality of building relations not as a means of achieving social change, but as the social change itself.

------------------------------------ Insert Picture 3 here: the VoS logo ------------------------------------

Their focus on social relations is such that, when describing their mural work, VoS emphasises not their artistic quality but the way in which the mural ‘process is example of the way in which separate groups can work together’ as well as ‘of how to create meeting places between social groups’. That is, social relations are not static, and thus the focus on processes.

Lastly, while addressing ethnic stigma and residential segregation, VoS consciously avoided all reference to ethnicity and the ‘immigrant’ category. Not once in their applications for funding, website, brochures or information leaflets are these terms used. They make reference instead to ‘communities’, ‘neighbourhoods’ and ‘social groups’ even if these communities, neighbourhoods and social groups are generally seen through their immigration past. VoS did, however, use certain ethnic-related terms, such as ‘Swede’ and ‘Swedish’, not to blame particular socio-economic groups but to extend the meaning of ‘Swedish art and city life’ to one that is inclusive of different ethnicities.

To conclude, a community rationality guides VoS efforts toward social change, a rationality in which social relations and the processes to create and nourish them are seen as key to achieving change. More than that. It is the transformation of the structure of those relations that actually constitutes the change. Hence VoS’s ambivalent relation to ethnicity, for if the ethnic boundary is seen as ‘organizing socio-economic relations in Sweden’, to transform relations also implies to ‘transgress ethnicity’, to take it as a starting point yet move beyond it.

Tac#csHow are transgressive social relations built? How does VoS create meeting places for groups that rarely meet? The paradox implicit in the initiative is that although it aims at moving beyond current definitions of ethnicity and the ethnic other, it nonetheless must address the ethnic other as it is defined today. How does VoS deal with this paradox?

Based on the kind of social relations a particular mural process addresses, VoS distinguishes between ‘community murals’ and ‘bridging murals’. In a ‘community mural process’ VoS encourages collaborations between actors and residents at a single local level, actors such as the local school, which works on the mural in its arts and crafts class, a state property owner in the neighbourhood, the local

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branch of the Red Cross, and a number of neighbours, women and youth associations. Participants and partners to a community mural are contacted on the basis of their location in the suburb. As a consequence, participants include women and men, ethnic Swedes and non-Swedes as well as the young and the less young.

------------------------------ Insert Picture 4 here: youth painting Husby60 ---------------------------

In a ‘bridging mural process’ VoS urges collaborations between ‘groups with different socio-economic background’, ‘social groups that do not meet in everyday life’, organizing processes through which youth from upper class families of Swedish background and youth from lower class families of immigrant background collaborate in the production of mural art in public spaces. This is done by involving one middle school or high school located in the wealthy city centre together with an equivalent school located in one of the stigmatised suburbs. Students from these schools are then engaged in a dialogue process about the mural’s motif, visit museums together for inspiration, spend a day in each other’s schools and, finally, paint the mural together.

When putting the idea of transgressing ethnicity into practice in both types of mural processes, the focus falls on the region viewed by the general public as an ‘immigrant suburb’, an ethnic enclave. Ethnicity thus plays a role in selecting the particular regions where to concentrate efforts. However, ethnicity does not extend as far as selecting the individual participants. In fact, the project makes a conscious effort to avoid falling into this kind of exclusion when, for instance, describing the target groups involved in the specific mural projects – ‘youngsters, pensioners, women’ as well as ‘artists, local politicians, property owners, neighbourhood associations, and youth centres.’ Ethnicity is never mentioned in these cases nor used as a selection criterion. In a sense, the initiative seeks to transgress ethnicity by never identifying individual participants as ethnic others, but rather as local actors. Selection criteria for participants emphasise collaboration across social groups that are defined through socio-economic status or place of residence, and never with reference to the ethnic boundary. Similarly, even if the neighbourhoods to work with are chosen for the immigrant stigma falling upon them, the vocabulary used to present the project to participants never describes the region or its residents in terms of ethnicity; funding proposals avoid stigmatising the region as an ‘immigrant suburb’ and instead adopt a vocabulary that alludes to a class (socio-economic) perspective.

With a strong awareness of the power of the ethnic boundary to organize social relations and to shape dominant imaginaries of space and people (Author, under review (b)), this collective mural arts organization resists ethnicity by developing a new language and developing new practices that focus on collaboration (instead of segregation) across differences that are present within all ethnic groups, such as those defined by class, age or gender. The focus is on the differences that we all share.

To conclude. Focusing neither on the material aspects of a social condition nor on the discursive classification of certain people and places as ‘immigrants’, VoS focused instead on developing social relationships – either across social groups (as when established youth of Swedish background collaborated with stigmatised youth of ethnic background in the initiatives bridging murals), or within the community of residents of a stigmatised suburb (in the community murals). VoS defined its target group not by ethnicity, but by place of residence. Participants in the collective mural arts projects did not share unemployment, or being born in a foreign country or having foreign parents, but rather their common experience of living in a stigmatised neighbourhood. Whether native Swedes or not, Husby residents were included because they shared the consequences of what Loïc Wacquant

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calls territorial stigmatisation (Wacquant 1996). By acting in this way, VoS not only proposes an alternative rationality to work with vulnerable socio-economic groups, but also a different definition of those groups that they hope has the potential to activate them to become agents of the social change they want to see take place.

Poli)cising.Social.Entrepreneurship:.Three.Ra)onali)es.Aiming.at.Social.Change.One of the challenges outlined in the field of social entrepreneurship is to move beyond managerialist analyses of the phenomenon to account for its social dimension (Barinaga 2012, Mair and Marti 2006). Entrepreneurship scholars take this challenge further when proposing to conceive the general phenomenon of entrepreneurship as a process of social change (Calás and Smircich, 2009). This article takes up that challenge empirically, by investigating the understanding of the social in three social entrepreneurial initiatives all aiming at changing the organization of socio-economic relations in Sweden along ethnic lines. In seeking to develop social entrepreneurship’s appreciation for the social, the article takes recourse to Foucault to suggest the notion of ‘social entrepreneurial rationality’. This refers to the way social ventures frame, justify and legitimate the practices, tactics and procedures they design and implement in their effort towards social change. The first contribution of the article is thus a conceptual one, as it proposes a notion that can help us understand the link between theories of change and social entrepreneurial practices, between modes of thought and methods of change.

The empirical investigation revealed three distinct social entrepreneurial rationalities to catalyse social change. First, efforts to introduce microfinance to work with long term unemployed immigrant women followed an economic rationality that argues that change occurs through the financial empowerment of individuals. Ignoring the root causes for the individual’s socio-economic dispossession, and focusing on the material dimension of the social, the economic rationality emphasises individual responsibility and led to standardising the process of dealing with outsiderness. By contrast, the second rationality identified stresses the ideational/symbolic dimension of the social. Efforts to create platforms for art and media production followed a discursive rationality that reasons that change takes place through adding nuance to the meanings attached to dominant ethnic categories. Raising the silenced voices of those classified as ‘immigrant’ and addressing society at large, a discursive rationality elicited the arbitrary and political nature of the ethnic categories. Finally, the collective production of public art by residents of stigmatised suburbs followed a community rationality that foregrounds the importance of social relations in efforts to achieve social change. Developing social relations within and between social groups, a community rationality invites participants not because of the ethnic categories they embody, but because of the social relations they can help to develop. The following table summarises and compares findings for all three initiatives.

----------------------------- Insert Table 1 here -----------------------------------------

These findings can help revise the more managerialist conceptualisations of social entrepreneurship currently prevalent in the field (Hjorth 2013, Steyaert and Hjorth 2006) by highlighting the political and ideological implications of social entrepreneurial rationalities. By identifying two social entrepreneurial rationalities other than the economic one, the article sheds doubt on the need to include a market or business orientation as a requirement for an initiative to be deemed

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socially entrepreneurial. This not only pushes us to broaden our imagination concerning conceptions of social entrepreneurship; it also unveils the (individualistic, market) values implicit in many academic discussions of the phenomenon and reveals the social imaginary that we may be unwittingly contributing to make real.

Finally, the respective material, symbolic and relational dimensions of the social emphasised by the economic, discursive and community rationalities for the three social entrepreneurial initiatives that were examined suggest the incommensurability between initiatives, even if these address a similar social ill. This raises a number of different problems for future research. First, we need to develop methods to assess social impact that are sensitive to the multidimensionality of the social and the tactics to achieve change. Second, scaling up efforts should be discussed not only in terms of reaching larger populations, but also of addressing the many facets of the social problems that are the object of social entrepreneurial initiatives. Some efforts are being made in this direction through the notion of collective impact (Kania and Kramer 2011, Kramer 2005). Lastly, since social changes at the scale aimed at by these initiatives are multi-faceted and encompass both material, discursive and relational dimensions, it may well be that no single one of the three rationalities would suffice alone to achieve the intended social change. Perhaps it is a combination of all three rationalities that would have a better chance at achieving the desired change. This reminds us that it is essential to understand the dynamics underlying the social changes induced by social entrepreneurs in order to be able to formulate well thought out and effective policies to support the sector and design effective social entrepreneurial initiatives.

The paper is thus a call to students of social entrepreneurship to put social change at the centre of attention, and a reminder that our understandings of the social shape our readings of the scope, content and sustainability of social entrepreneurial interventions. If we aim to create knowledge that can contribute to enhance social change processes, we need to face the difficult task of understanding the various aspects of the social that the initiatives aim at. Our concepts and theoretical frameworks should enable, rather than limit, an exploration of a wide array of social entrepreneurial practices addressed at catalysing social change. By restricting our studies to understanding the economic and managerial aspects of social entrepreneurial initiatives, we risk accentuating the three neoliberal tenets of the individual, competition and the market to the detriment of communities, collaboration and welfare. That is, we need to face the power and ideological aspects implicit in conceptions of the social. Only then we will be able to acknowledge the political implications of the rationalities, strategies, methods and tools used by social entrepreneurs in their efforts toward social change.

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Poli%cizing*social*entrepreneurship

–*Three*social*entrepreneurial*ra%onali%es*towards*social*change*

Table*1

Micro:finance Immigrant*Youth*Associa%on Collec%ve*Public*Arts*Organiza%on

Ra%onality

Economic rationality: Social change occurs by means of financial empowerment of individuals.

Conscious avoidance of ethnicity.

Discursive rationality: Social change occurs by means of reformulating the established discourse on ethnicity.

Explicit relation to ethnicity.

Community rationality: Social change occurs by means of developing social relations within communities and between social groups.

Ambivalent relation to ethnicity.

The*social

The social as a form of the economic.

De-politicises the social.

The social as a dominant discourse that represents and performs distinct population groups.

Politicises the social.

The social as relations among individuals and social groups.

Ambivalent towards the political aspects of the social.

Tac%cs*

Standardisation of microfinance product.

Potential loan-takers are selected through non-profits organised along ethnic lines.

Ethnicity re-instantiated.

Politicisation of ethnicity.

Explicit relation to ethnicity by erecting themselves as ethnic others, yet questioning the boundary that makes them so.

Development of social relations within a particular neighbourhood (community murals) or between distinct socio-economic groups (bridging murals).

Indirect relation to ethnicity by selecting neighbourhood to work with along the establishment’s definition of the neighbourhood as ‘immigrant suburb’.

Target*of*ini%a%ve’s*prac%ces*/*Object*of*

government*

The particular individual.

Outsider and potential loan taker defined by individual economic dependency.

Established discourse.

Social difference (ethnicity) is consciously used as a political resource.

Community/social relations.

Potential participant identified through her place of residence.