Entrepreneurship‐As‐Struggle: The Crises and Politics of Entrepreneurial Becomings

Abstract

Entrepreneurship among marginalized people in Bangladesh involves social, political, and cultural struggle against immediate crises of poverty and enduring crises of class, caste, religious, and gendered exclusions. Drawing on 25 months of ethnographic research among entrepreneurs in rural Bangladesh and the life stories of 137 entrepreneurs, we argue that the aspirations, relationships, and transformations that emerge with these practices reveal an entrepreneurship distinct from the mainstream development ideas so prevalent in the region about individualized market actors. This article calls attention to the specific forms of politics that entrepreneurship‐as‐struggle acquires and explores how entrepreneurs mobilize identity formation, accommodating protest, cultural critique, and solidaristic action through their ventures. Paying heed to such forms of politics in entrepreneurship offers insights into what types of crises entrepreneurship is able to confront and what forms of transformation become possible for entrepreneurs and their communities.